Chapter 64

This was a small story that took place behind the scenes, while Varna was engaged in his fierce battle with the white bear—.

To a casual observer, everyone in the village was exceptionally kind.

“Oh? I don’t recognize your face. You from around here? Well, whatever—we’re about to have a snowball fight, want to join?”

Busse knew that if it hadn’t been him they were talking to, they really would have been kind people. But the reality for him was often different.

“My dad and mom told me not to play with anyone from your house,” a local child once told him, “so don’t come around anymore starting today. Even if you do, I’m gonna ignore you, okay?”

Everyone in the village was also very helpful.

“Running errands at such a young age? What a good boy! Here, I’ll give you an extra vegetable for free!”

Busse felt that if only he weren’t there, they truly would have been helpful people. However, the moment his identity was revealed, the warmth would vanish.

“Wait, you’re Old Man David’s grandson?” a merchant had once spat. “You don’t look a thing like him; you completely fooled me. Buy what you need and get lost already. I can’t stand that old man!”

His grandfather had taught him almost everything.

“If you bury beast meat in the snow, it won’t rot for a long time,” the old man would say. “Just don’t forget where you buried it, alright?”

But except for the one time Busse asked why the villagers avoided them, his grandfather had shared every piece of knowledge he possessed. Regarding the village, however, the old man would only say: “Don’t associate with the likes of those villagers. They’re a bunch of good-for-nothings. They still refuse to acknowledge it.”

Did Busse hate the land of Isberg? Did he hate the village?

He felt that Captain Akina’s assessment couldn’t have been further from the mark.

The people in Isberg all helped one another—well, everyone except for him and his grandfather. They helped each other, talked to each other, and cared for one another. They loved the land.

Busse loved it too. He loved waking up in the morning to watch the sun rise from the east, illuminating the snow-covered plains with a glittering light. He loved watching the squirrels that occasionally came to play along the branches stretching beside his house. And when he went fishing in the nearby lake, he found it funny how the nutrient-rich fish froze solid the moment they were pulled from the water.

It wasn’t just winter that he admired. In spring, the forest overflowed with greenery; in summer, the conifers provided just enough shade from the sun for various animals and insects to carry out the cycles of life. When autumn arrived, mountain vegetables like walnuts were plentiful, and the large mushrooms he occasionally found made for an exquisite soup.

A hunter’s job was to trap, butcher, and eat animals within that cycle. Busse was certain they ate the freshest, most delicious meat in the world. People from the outside claimed that eating everything from the muscle to the internal organs was cruel, but he believed it was far more horrific to take a life from nature and then let its flesh and blood go to waste. To him, that was what truly constituted a “useless killing.”

Sometimes, he was reminded of nature’s severity. He had once had his body pierced by antlers when he failed to deliver the finishing blow to a captured deer. He had slipped into a crevice hidden by snow and broken his bones. There had been heavy rains, droughts, and snowfalls so deep he couldn’t reach the village. The power of nature was simply too vast, and it served as a constant reminder that he was merely one small part of that world.

He gave thanks for life, observed the workings of the world, and felt the reality of being alive. To have his heart cleansed by nature, to surrender himself to it, and to care for it—that was how the people of Isberg village had survived.

Busse believed everyone surely took pride in that, and he did as well. He found the same things wonderful as they did. Even if they weren’t that way toward him, he believed everyone was kind at heart.

In his mind, he didn’t live in an unhappy place. He saw himself as no different from the people of Isberg. In such a wonderful land, he wondered what he could possibly have to complain about.

It was only—it was only that everyone happened to leave him out, and occasionally whispered behind his back about how they wished he would just leave the village soon. If it were only that much, Busse did not hold a grudge against the villagers; he could survive in the mountains alone.

As he stoked the logs in the fire and stared at the flickering warmth, words escaped his lips of their own accord.

“I’m not lonely… If I greet them, they greet me back.”

He told himself this even if their faces twitched, or if they wore smiles like fixed masks. He told himself this even if they indirectly rejected the act of doing anything together, or projected their will that while they pitied him, they did not want him to stay in their presence for long.

And even if he had no family to hear those words, and it was decided that he was alone when he woke and when he slept, performing almost every act of survival by himself, he maintained his stance.

Yet, there was a phrase that continued to cause great ripples in his heart.

‘Is it so wrong to be lonely? Are you only “not lonely” because there are people around?’

The adult woman—the first outsider he had ever met and the first knight he had approached of his own volition—had said those words.

Captain Akina, the head of the Engineering Squad. When his fingers had become stuck to the cage, he had touched a woman’s hand and brought his face close to hers in the heat of the moment. Having rarely interacted with people, Busse had realized he had behaved rudely only after seeing Akina’s subsequent fury, and he had felt ashamed.

Yet, the reason he had kept approaching her was likely because he was unconsciously seeking a mother in her. Her prickly nature, her blunt way of speaking, and her soft hands reminded him of his grandfather somehow; he thought that if his mother were alive, she might have been someone like this.

Besides, Akina had a dignified face that made him want to keep looking at her. Even being with her, he could not think of her as the “bad person” everyone else claimed she was. Her merciless way of speaking—showing no concern for the fact that he was a child or that he was all alone—was something Busse had not experienced since his grandfather died, and it made him feel very nostalgic.

He had never had a mother, but every time he saw a child in the village laughing while holding their mother’s hand, he felt an indescribable ache in his chest. He wanted someone like that, too. He had not thought so in the past, but ever since his grandfather’s death, that desire had slowly begun to take over.

Perhaps the reason he had spoken to Akina about his past was because his shallow feelings had simply run ahead of him. Akina did not hate him for it, but in exchange, she had thrown nothing but unbelievable words at him.

‘If I weren’t lonely, I wouldn’t be helping the Knight Order, and you wouldn’t be clinging to me like glue, right? Personally, if I could be alone in a place where I could do only what I wanted to do, that’s where I’d want to be.’

What flickered in the back of his mind then were the traps he had assembled on the nights after he had been brushed off by the villagers. He remembered the version of himself that chose those traps and worked on them with single-minded devotion, as if trying to forget everything else.

“No. It’s not that I’d rather be alone than be with the villagers…”

Busse read books as well, so there were things he knew despite his lack of worldly experience. For example, he knew that having many people around was a good thing. He knew that hating or envying people was a pathetic thing to do. He knew that in this world, there was a method of deciding things called “majority rule,” which meant the many were always right.

Therefore, he believed he was not wrong. The way he acted then was surely the way of a “good boy,” a “likable boy,” a “sensible boy.” He told himself that if he kept it up, the day would surely come when he could finally join the circle of everyone else.

But Akina had gouged right through those thoughts of his.

‘Even if you aren’t close, having someone who follows you when you’re doing what you want to do… that’s something to be incredibly happy about.’

He thought it was a lie. He believed one was only supposed to be happy when finally becoming friends with someone they weren’t close to.

‘I’ve worked with all kinds of people before, but this is completely different. Do you know why? Because there’s someone here who understands and accepts what I want to do and what I want to create.’

No, Busse thought, that was definitely wrong. Finding happiness in working together, or finding happiness in not doing so… that was not the way of life he knew.

But whether it was “wrong” or a “lie”—was that for him to decide? Did it mean his way of life was the one that was wrong?

‘Humans are allowed to just own their defiance.’

“If I own my defiance, I’ll definitely never get along with the villagers,” he murmured to the flames. “But if I don’t, does that mean I’ll never be a part of the village…? Why? What for? What did I ever do…? Then all of this was for nothing…”

He had provided the traps. He had taken the lead in triggering controlled avalanches during off-hours to keep the village safe. He had even brought his surplus meat to the village to share. He had thought the reason everyone still would not accept him was simply because he had not worked hard enough yet.

Busse tossed more wood into the fire. The logs, having reached a high temperature, slowly passed the flames along. The wood that sacrificed its own body to provide heat for others eventually burned out into ash, only to be scooped up and thrown away. For a fleeting second, he overlapped his own end with theirs. He shook his head violently to drive the thought away.

He wondered how it could be so cold, when he was so close to the fire.

After Busse vanished, Akina’s movements were surprisingly precise.

She immediately began questioning people nearby (or rather, half-threatening them) to confirm that Busse had gone outside. Once she saw he’d gone too far to be spotted by the naked eye, she sprinted back to the motive carriage and forcibly dragged out Caliban, who was in the middle of a meal.

“Move it, rookie!! We’ve got work to do!!”

“You’re taking my work hours out of my lunch break too?! Noooooo!! Give me rest! Give me my legal tiiiime ooooff!!!!”

…Initially, Caliban looked utterly despairing at having his meal interrupted. However, the moment he learned the situation, he told them he’d bring his familiars and to prepare something with Busse’s scent, immediately springing into action.

If he’d just gone to the village, it would be fine, but if he’d run into the snowy mountains and gotten lost, it would be a disaster. No matter how much of a local he was, the chance of a child running out blindly while crying ending up in danger was high. Knowing the gravity of the situation, it was inevitable that the kind-hearted Caliban would move.

Only a few minutes later, Caliban’s familiar bird, the wolf Pero, and even Senega and Bevion—who had been summoned as emergency reinforcements—were gathered.

“Right, here are Busse’s laundry pants! Miraculously, I managed to swipe them before they were washed!”

“Woof!”

‘To swipe a young boy’s freshly worn pants… I want to tease her… I want to tease her so bad, but no, endure it for now, Senega! This could be a serious matter…!’

“Senega-san, is it just my imagination or do you look like you’re itching to say something?”

“We need to start the search quickly, so of course I’m restless.”

‘I wonder… No, judging by her usual behavior, she’s almost certainly lying…’

Seeing the surreal sight of Akina making the dead-serious Pero take a long whiff of Busse’s pants was enough to make anyone want to laugh, but even Senega restrained herself here.

A dog’s sense of smell far exceeds a human’s. The same goes for a wolf, a species very closely related to dogs. They didn’t know how far they could track him in this snow, but the discovery rate would certainly be higher than humans wandering around blindly.

“So, how should we move? We still don’t know where Busse-kun went. If he isn’t lost, there’s a chance he’s at one of the spots he visits frequently…”

At the suggestion from Bevion, who apparently cherishes toddlers as much as he does young girls, Senega—who had taken over command of the search from Akina midway—pushed up her glasses.

“I checked the area. Since the snow had mostly stopped, the footprints haven’t vanished, though I couldn’t identify which ones were his. There are two main trails. One leads toward the village, and the other consists of several routes he takes to set traps in the mountains.”

“Let’s see… what, we’ve narrowed it down this much?”

Akina, who had draped the pants over Pero’s head, joined in as Senega sketched out the rough routes on a simple map. Pero, looking extremely annoyed at having the pants hung there because Akina didn’t know where else to put them, shook them off.

In this case, the one deserving of pity wasn’t Pero, but perhaps Busse, whose pants were being handled so carelessly. Normally, having your pants taken without permission and then put on public display would be an incident traumatic enough to make a kid stop going to school.

Digression aside, Senega quickly began assigning roles.

“Caliban, please narrow down the direction using Pero’s sense of smell. If you can’t track him, we’ll split up to search the eastern route where the trap squad went, the southern route where the cooking squad went hunting, and the direction of the village. Our means of communication will be the familiars.”

“I brought as many familiars as I could to act as messengers! Nonoka-san is going to act as the relay station, so if you find him, send one off immediately!”

“Just you wait, kid. I’m gonna find you in no time…!!”

The two rookies swallowed hard at Akina’s resolve, which was filled with a passion unimaginable from her usual self-centered and careless attitude. Even though she was always overbearing and had practically forced them into this search, the reason Busse had run off crying in the first place was Akina.

As an individual and as an adult who cared for a child, Akina likely couldn’t forgive herself. Seeing this unexpected side of someone they’d pegged as a total deadbeat, the two looked at each other, determined to live up to her expectations.

“We’re definitely finding him, Caliban!”

“Of course. Since the Captain is being that serious—”

“When I find him, I’m gonna tie him up so he can’t run away!! The nerve of him, running off and cutting me off mid-sentence! I might not listen to other people, but I can’t stand people who won’t listen to me, and I won’t forgive a man who’s a total wimp and cries at the drop of a hat!!”

…The two fell flat on the floor at Akina being just as selfish as always. They took back their previous thoughts; Akina-san felt zero guilt for making him cry and was actually angry instead. Maybe it was better not to live up to her expectations.

“…If we find Busse-kun, let’s keep it a secret from the Captain until she cools off.”

“…That would be for the boy’s own safety, wouldn’t it?”

“Personally, I’m more surprised that you two expected Akina to have human-like emotions. Just think about it—it’s that Akina, you know?”

And so, before the search even began, the three of them immediately cut Akina out and made a secret pact.

If, by some miracle, Akina found Busse first, what would happen to him? That was something only the gods knew, but one got the feeling he’d just end up being made to cry one more time.