‘He said he had to take that child to the forest. He kept repeating that.’
Then where was ‘that child’ that the physician must have taken?
The body of the boy who gave birth, the body of the physician who took someone to the forest, the man who informed Kalian of his younger sibling’s tragedy.
The only thing without substance in this story was ‘the baby.’
Kalian speculated that ‘that child’ the physician had taken must be the baby that had torn through the boy’s womb.
“That forest over there, do people pass through it often?”
“Oh my, of course.”
The woman, a village resident, faithfully answered Kalian’s question.
“Most of the herbs sold at the market are all gathered from that forest. Of course, the areas people can enter are limited.”
“Are there restricted areas?”
“Rather than restricted, it’s more accurate to say that the mountain terrain is too rough so no one tries to go deep inside.”
Kalian, who had stepped back a few steps to broaden his view, nodded while looking at the mountain peak visible faintly in the distance. Even just looking at it, it didn’t seem like an easy shape to climb. The deep gorges between the sheer cliffs were so steep they seemed to refuse human footsteps.
“There’s a small sheep farm halfway up there. That’s exactly as far as people can travel.”
Bailey, crouching at a spot a bit away from them, sighed while looking at Kalian having a serious conversation with a village resident.
It had already been several months. His superior had been staying in this backwater for months without much gain. However, the time to put an end to this meaningless stay was approaching.
Because his return deadline was only a few days away. They had to leave this place within three days to return to the royal palace within the deadline, so with even the physician—their last hope—dead, there was nothing more they could do.
“Bailey, leave the horses at that farm over there for a bit. We need to climb the mountain.”
“…What?”
He doubted his ears for a moment.
“Where are you climbing?”
“The mountain.”
Kalian simply replied, pointing toward the upstream of the river. The sudden mountain climbing proposal felt like a bolt from the blue to Bailey, who had been planning to leisurely go to the inn and pack his luggage to prepare to leave.
“Wh-what are you going to do there?”
“They say there’s a farm halfway up. I need to go to that shepherd and ask if there were any suspicious people in that forest. If ‘that child’ is still in the forest, we might run into them.”
“…”
This crazy bastard.
There wasn’t a separate crazy mage in this world. More insane than the mage who transformed an innocent merchant into a frog was the mage who wanted to climb a mountain in this heat to find a legendary vampire.
“Even if we go, we won’t gain anything anyway…”
He could bet his wrists on it. Bailey earnestly tried to persuade him.
“You don’t have much time before returning either. What if we get lost after going in for no reason…?”
At that desperate persuasion, Kalian grinned. He pointed to the woman he’d just been talking with.
“That lady said she’ll guide us.”
***
Bailey cursed his superior inwardly. The summer forest at midday was a good place to just sit still, feel the breeze, and take a leisurely stroll, not a good place to seriously climb.
And that, with a huge bundle of luggage on his shoulders.
“Bailey… Try to stop that woman…”
Kalian, practically hanging on Bailey’s shoulder, pleaded in an almost crying voice. His eyes, which had been full of excitement at departure, were now losing light like the eyes of a mackerel with its body and head separated.
“Stop her how? You’re the one who asked her to guide us…”
Bailey grumbled while struggling to push away Kalian who kept clinging to him. In fact, it was just their stamina that was the problem; this mountain was innocent.
“Mages! Hang in there a bit more! We’re almost there!”
The woman who had gone ahead turned toward them and waved her hand. Bailey shuddered looking at her.
That woman had been saying the same thing since earlier. We’re almost there, just a bit more to go… She’d been saying that since the entrance to the forest, so not a shred of trust remained now.
In the middle, perhaps frustrated herself, she had driven Bailey and Kalian to despair by exclaiming, “Mages, crawling like that, when on earth will you catch up? It takes at least two more hours of walking diligently to get to Gillie’s farm!”
He didn’t know why country people all had such good stamina. Kalian stuck out his tongue watching the woman flying and crawling around like a wild dog for hours on end.
“Mages!”
She called them once more from afar. Bailey barely managed to raise his hand and wave it feebly.
“Over there! That’s Gillie’s farm right there!”
“Lord Kalian…, she says it’s over there?”
“No…, don’t believe her. It’s definitely still far away and she’s just making a fuss…”
But this time, unlike the previous lies, it was different. The woman didn’t move from that spot and just waited for them to come closer.
“Sheesh, goodness…, look at that sweat. You have to understand that city people are delicate, you know?”
The woman, seeing the two people who had come close, grimaced and shook her head. Then she pointed somewhere.
“Look over there. There, do you see it?”
When they turned their heads toward where the woman pointed, indeed a wide plain appeared. A wooden fence surrounding the green plain and the milky white sheep densely filling the inside too.
“That’s Gillie’s farm. When going down, if you follow along with the river on your left, you won’t get lost.”
The woman, whose job was only to bring them to Gillie’s farm, shook off her tunic without regret and turned around.
“Y-you’re leaving…?”
“Of course.”
Having walked for so long, she should at least rest a bit before going down the mountain, but she was truly relentless. Bailey waved toward the woman walking away with a tired face.
Kalian and Bailey fully arrived at Gillie’s farm a few minutes later. A boy who had been lying against a shallow tree stump with a dogtail grass in his mouth discovered them and raised his upper body.
He had a youthful face estimated to be in his mid-teens. He put on the hat he’d taken off on the grass and approached them. His face, reddened from being heated by the sun, examined the two with suspicion.
“What brings you here?”
“Are you the shepherd Gillie?”
“Yes, I am?”
When Kalian couldn’t continue speaking because he was gasping for breath, Bailey beside him clicked his tongue and continued for him.
“We visited for an investigation regarding the body that floated down that river recently.”
“Ah, if it’s that, I know all about it! The rumor has spread far and wide.”
“Then we won’t need to explain at length. By any chance, around the time before and after the body was discovered, did any suspicious people pass through here?”
Gillie secured the gate of the pen where the sheep were confined and led them toward the river.
“At least as far as I know, there weren’t any.”
He, carrying an empty bucket placed on the riverbank, entered the water. Skillfully stepping on the stones jutting out here and there among the flowing water to head toward the middle, he filled the bucket and said,
“Did that physician ever stop by here?”
“No. I don’t even know what that physician’s face looks like.”
Gillie calmly shouldered the bucket on his broad shoulders and crossed back over to this side. Perhaps from living as a shepherd for a long time, his body was very sturdy compared to what his face suggested his age to be.
Kalian carefully examined the upstream of the river and asked,
“I heard the path from there onward is rough, but have you ever gone up?”
“Not very far, but I have been up. Sometimes sheep escape all the way up there.”
‘That child’ who had accompanied the physician disappeared, and only the physician floated down. But if no one passed through here, wouldn’t ‘that child’ still be somewhere upstream? Kalian inwardly made such a deduction and added a question.
“Then by any chance, could there be someone living up there or a place suitable to live?”
“Nah, of course not.”
Gillie grinned and continued.
“Only fairies live up there.”
“Fairies.”
Absurdity showed on Kalian’s face as he repeated the short word.
“Yes. Forest fairies.”
He seems past the age to believe in such things… He muttered to himself with a snort. Fortunately Gillie didn’t hear, but Bailey, who heard his words right beside him, could only be dumbfounded.
Yet you’re tracking a ‘vampire’… A man who’s twenty-four years old at that.
Fairies or vampires, from Bailey’s perspective they were the same illusion.
“So anyway, the upper area isn’t a place where people could stay.”
Instead of answering affirmatively, Gillie shrugged and poured water into a large trough. Bailey had sufficiently expected this, but Kalian was very disappointed. It was because the gain was hardly worth the hardship of coming up.
Kalian couldn’t readily leave, regretful that the conversation had ended so plainly with nothing more to dig up. He had to return to the royal palace soon, but the investigation had ultimately hit a dead end, so he felt unbearably frustrated.
‘It would have been good if I’d had a bit more time.’
However, he’d already poured half a year’s worth of vacation entirely into this. Recently, the royal palace had been investing a lot of manpower in collecting relics buried in the old magic towers of the four directions, and extending his stay period in the midst of that was something he felt self-conscious about just thinking about.
“Mm…, if by any chance you see any suspicious people nearby, please contact us.”
“Where are you from?”
“I would appreciate it if you could send correspondence to the Royal Palace Holy Hall, addressed to First Mage Kalian Artes.”
“…The Royal Palace Holy Hall?”
Gillie, seeming a bit surprised by such an impressive title, soon nodded with a bewildered face.
“I-I will. Though I don’t think there will be anything I can help with…”
“Even the smallest thing is fine, so if anything special happens on this mountain, please be sure to send me word. I’ll wait no matter when it is.”
Kalian, not quite trusting Gillie’s reaction, urged once more.
