Part 2, Episode 11
Day 11.
The young magitech engineer spoke to me first for the first time in five days.
“Hey. Don’t come here anymore.”
The boy, who approached me with a most serious face, gestured towards the sphere in my arms and said, “I don’t intend to fix your magical tools. So stop bothering me and get lost.”
“I have plenty of time.”
“Use that time somewhere else!”
“Everyone besides you is afraid of me, so no.”
The boy huffed out a rough breath and threw the <Gray Falcon Language Translator> onto the ground.
“Just get lost!”
He was certainly gruff.
Looking at his harshly turned back, I thought of my mentors. Count Rosebell, the Swordmaster, and, well, Raphael too, I suppose he was my mentor in a way.
‘Uselessly stubborn. There’s not much time left to teach anyway.’
You should just learn obediently. They probably looked at me with these eyes too.
Dian Cecht’s translator? I’d appreciate it if he fixed it, but it could be fixed well enough in Penrotta. In fact, that might be more reliable.
I snatched the sword from the boy.
“Wait, what are you doing…!”
I swung the sword.
This was swordsmanship.
Swordsmanship, in simple terms, was the use of a sword in martial arts. However, some families possessed codified secrets of swordsmanship, which they called sword techniques, and passed them down through generations.
A master at a high caliber could subdue an opponent with just the drawing of the sword. Count Rosebell was like that.
However, those at a lofty level of skill wielded the sword as naturally as flowing water, as if it were an extension of their body. The Swordmasster was like that.
Just like talent, the swordsmanship of a strong warrior also inspired those who watched. Just as I learned survival from Raphael’s sword, I wanted the boy to learn what he desired from my sword.
Yes, I was being meddlesome now.
The driving force wasn’t too grand.
It was simply because, looking at the boy, countless versions of my past self came to mind: Me on Queen Island, me as Andert, me with Raphael, and me with my mentors.
Therefore, no persuasion would work on this guy. How can I be so sure? That was because I was the same in the past.
The boy was afraid.
To be indebted and form a new relationship.
To desire hope for the future and to grasp that hope in his hands.
When I put down the sword and looked back, the boy’s face was blank.
“Did you see something?”
There was no answer to my question. The boy simply had an expression as if he were continuously drawing something in his mind.
“Don’t rush, I’ll show you again tomorrow.”
Returning home, I sat in front of a letter paper for the first time since I left Penrotta.
But the problem was what came next.
When I tried to write ‘To Andert’ or ‘To Raphael’, or ‘To my mentor,’ my hand wouldn’t move at all.
I felt a great sense of resistance while writing, so much so that my fingers cramped.
“Fine. I’ll write it later..”
On the 15th day, a hail storm struck.
Tweet-
“Yes, Ash. I’m worried that the window might get a hole in it like this too.”
Today, I made onion soup with leftover ingredients and ate it.
I thought of the boy, but considering the harsh weather, I didn’t see the point in visiting him, so I spent the whole day with Ash.
However, as the sun set and the storm’s intensity didn’t wane, I began to worry. It wasn’t weather that could be endured with just a scrap of old cloth, so I left the house.
Whoosh-
Sure enough, the boy’s tent, which was no different from his residence, had already been half-blown away.
‘He must have taken shelter in the abandoned building.’
There’s no way he’d stubbornly hold onto his belongings with his body. And yet.
I entered the flapping tent and pulled the boy by the scruff of his neck.
Hot.
Startled by the heat that reached me, I hastily turned the boy around.
“Since when has your body been…”
“No!”
The boy pushed me away with eyes reddened by blood vessels. Unlike yesterday, there was no hesitation in his every movement.
He shouted as he pulled back and hugged the objects covered with cloth.
“Don’t take me away! My brother’s belongings will float away… I have to protect them!”
Belongings, huh.
So the magitech engineer wasn’t the boy but his brother? I did think he was too young to be in university.
‘His personal affairs are none of my business.’
He was going to die like this, so saving him was the priority. When I pulled his scruff again, the boy resisted, thrashing his limbs.
“Get lost, leave me alone!”
This unruly kid. He was even swinging his fists at me now?
“Argh!”
When I gave him a taste of an adult’s fist, he rolled on the ground, his head wrapped up. Even if his body was hot, pain was still pain, it seemed.
“Disgusting…”
Since they were precious belongings, I should take care of them.
First of all, let’s try to fit as many items as possible into the cloth that was covering the objects.
“I’m talking about you, you! You’re disgusting! Don’t be mistaken, do you think you’re anything to me? Pretending to care for me, pretending to think about me, just because you showed me how to use a sword a few times!”
First, I should pack up the more important items. Gently, so as not to damage them… No, maybe I should just pack them up first and worry later.
“Can’t you hear me? You, damn it, are despicable! So just go away… I’ve been living well on my own. Don’t get in the way of my life…”
Plop. The boy collapsed weakly after being hit on the nape of his neck.
A sigh escaped involuntarily from my mouth.
“As I expected, being a teacher is hard.”
I carried the boy with one arm and the belongings wrapped in cloth with the other.
When we returned home, both the boy and I were soaking wet as if we had fallen into a river.
Tweet?
“Yes, Ash. It’s your first time smelling such a rain, isn’t it?”
Tweet.
“Is he a beggar? Yes, beggars have no permanent residence.”
After laying the boy in front of the hearth, I threw his belongings into the room.
Was she curious about the new guest? Ash, who had been playing with the boy’s hair for a while, soon settled into the gap there and closed her eyes.
That’s dirty, Ash.
Around midnight, when the boy’s body was completely dry, I threw him onto the bed.
Day 16.
When I woke up in my chair, the boy was sitting on the bed, staring at the slums’ scenery that was slightly visible at the corner of the adjacent building’s wall.
I placed my hand on his forehead and felt a warm but not hot temperature. Like I thought, his body wasn’t ordinary.
The boy, who had been sitting blankly, opened his mouth with a much more docile voice compared to yesterday.
“Most people here came up from the land of death. …They’re no different from refugees.”
“The land of death?”
“You don’t know the land of death? Who the hell are you exactly…”
The boy glanced at me with a look of disdain and then stared out the window again. His eyes looked like they were tracing a long gone past.
“That place is where the Northern Continent Union, Penrotta and Contaninos meet. It was a good land for raising sheep. Until 10 years ago, that is, before Spolia burned it down…”
For a moment, anger flashed across the boy’s face.
“They destroyed our peaceful home… using ‘purification’ as an excuse! Damned purification. The land where the trees withered away is now called the land of death! It wasn’t purification, it was a curse!”
It seemed like a pretty big event, and yet I hadn’t heard about it.
‘If it was 10 years ago, it was when the Magic Alliance was in an all-out war with Mephisto’s army.’
Penrotta’s condition itself was so bad that events from this side had likely been buried quietly.
“My brother… left his great university to take care of me and ended up settling here, but… the disease he got from the land of death eventually spread to his brain…”
The boy’s cries filled the room.
I stared at the boy’s swollen eyes with a bitter feeling, then carefully parted my lips.
“I’m sorry, but could you not drip your snot on the blanket?”
The boy looked at me with astonishment.
“Don’t ruin the atmosphere, you idiot! Can’t you see I’m crying? I just wanted to die… I was going to die with my brother’s belongings!”
“Don’t say you’re going to die so easily.”
“Easily? Do you think I spit it out easily? Ha… what can I expect from a lunatic like you? It’s fine, it’s all fine, it’s done…”
The boy’s pupils suddenly became clear.
“From now on, you’re responsible for me.”
…All of a sudden like this?
“That’s a bit…”
“You’re going to save me, who has no connection to you, teach me a few basic sword techniques, and then run away? Bullshit. I absolutely won’t allow it!”
“That’s not something for you to allow or not in the first place…”
“Stay by my side.”
It was more of a confident demand than a plea.
“Keep watching over me… If you just do that, I’ll make sure you don’t regret choosing me.”
Facing the unwavering blue eyes, I swallowed the sigh that was about to escape.
I didn’t understand how kids these days were so bold.
Daisy is getting payback for her disobedience towards her mentors lmao
yes I gave up on moondust, I want to read it together with you guys and your comments lol
Thank you for the chapter!
Jean, assassin butler, bandit maid, informant grandpa and several other minor characters, Daisy has talent for randomly picking people up. Rue’s reaction is worth looking forward to, whatever is absurd or jealous for no reason.