“……”
Elijah silently tore off a piece of bread and put it in his mouth. It was his way of refusing, but Igrit wasn’t one to easily accept that. Another piece of bread flew at the top of his head.
“Let’s go, Elijah. We just need to look and come back.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Come on. I want to eat a pomegranate. My mouth is so dry it’s sticking together.”
Elijah glanced at his Master and frowned. Since their entire meal consisted of bread that had hardened or grown moldy, the children would sometimes pick fruit that grew on trees and share it amongst themselves.
But it was winter now. There was no way such things would be growing in winter.
“It’s definitely going to be inedible fruit. I don’t want to waste time for nothing. And if Master catches us……”
“Idiot. Stupid……! Can’t you do anything without Master’s permission?”
“Yeah, I can’t.”
He was stating the obvious. If he disobeyed Master’s words, he’d be punished. Sometimes he’d have to kneel in the cold snow with his hands raised for hours, or draw the same magic circle hundreds of times.
Elijah turned away from Igrit with a resolute expression and chewed his bread. Pieces of bread kept flying at the area around his cheeks.
“Hm.”
Jade cleared his throat quietly and stared at Igrit with stern eyes.
“What punishment did I say you’d receive for playing with food, Igrit?”
Only then did Igrit’s hand stop. Please punish him quickly, Master. Scold Igrit, hurry. Elijah silently shouted wicked words inside.
“Clean up the bread pieces you threw at Elijah with your own hands.”
However, their generous Master seemed willing to let it slide just this once.
“Yes……”
Igrit answered sullenly and hung his head. The way he jutted out his lips was utterly detestable. Elijah shook his head and concentrated on his meal.
“Daisy, aren’t you eating more? Then give that to me.”
“I can’t…… Master will scold me.”
“Pass it over here secretly.”
The two children with Elijah between them secretly chatted. Soon, two small hands passed bread over Elijah’s lap.
Daisy, Iris, Dahlia, Clover…… Excluding Igrit and Elijah, all the children’s names were taken from flowers or plants. Since many of the children who gathered at the monastery had no names, Master had established this method, saying it was bothersome to name them one by one.
“Finish your meal.”
At Jade’s words, the children all lowered their hands beneath the table at once. Some children still had bread in their mouths and were chewing away, and Clover, who had just received the bread Daisy left behind, forcefully stuffed the bread he couldn’t finish into his mouth until his cheeks bulged.
After waiting a moment for the children to chew and swallow their bread sufficiently, Jade shook a handbell. At the sharp sound of the bell, all the children lifted the hems of their shirts as if they’d made a promise.
Jade rose from his seat and felt the children’s soft bellies. Since there were occasionally children who secretly skipped meals, he would always check in this way whether all the children had eaten faithfully.
“Daisy, you’re getting thinner as days go by. You need to eat well to grow up healthy.”
“……”
“To become a great mage, robust stamina is also essential. Do you all understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
A unified answer returned. When Jade left the dining hall, only then did the children begin to rise one by one. The sound of chairs scraping echoed through the dark dining hall.
As she extinguished the candles that had been placed at regular intervals on the table, Daisy complained quietly.
“I want to eat stew with meat in it.”
Elijah, who was beside her, asked with a puzzled face.
“What does that taste like?”
“You’ve never eaten it? It’s really delicious…… It’s the most wonderful taste in the world……”
The most wonderful taste in the world…… He couldn’t even guess what that taste might be like. A very long time ago, he’d picked up meat that had turned blue from a garbage heap and eaten it, becoming terribly sick, and the meat he ate then had tasted really strange.
In truth, having only ever eaten rotten food his entire life, the bread he’d been able to eat after meeting Master was the most delicious food in the world to Elijah.
“Daisy, you haven’t eaten it either. You’re talking as if you have.”
Dahlia, who had entered on the same day as Daisy, laughed and teased him. Daisy insisted stubbornly.
“I know even without eating it, okay? Just from smelling it, I know. It’ll be the most delicious food in the world.”
“What does it smell like?”
“Um, cozy, warm, and also……”
The children who had gathered around him before they knew it each imagined that smell and sniffed.
“It was an incredibly soft smell. Savory like freshly baked bread……”
Whoosh, darkness suddenly descended upon them. Elijah, who had thrown out the first question but wasn’t really interested in their conversation and had been diligently organizing the dining hall chairs, blew out the last remaining candle.
“Elijah! What are you doing blowing out all the candles! We’re still here!”
The children complained and rushed out after him.
No matter how much they tried, imagination couldn’t overcome reality. In the breaths they drew while imagining all sorts of cozy and soft smells, only musty stagnant air and the cold chill of winter seeped in.
* * *
“Ugh, it’s cold!”
The naked children gathered closely together and stamped their feet. Part of the frozen river had melted so they could finally wash, but they couldn’t bring themselves to get in.
They each tried to heat the water with the magic they’d learned, but their clumsy abilities were inadequate.
“Oh, it’s Elijah! Elijah! Come quick, quick!”
One child spotted Elijah and hopped up and down waving their hand. Elijah looked at them as if he couldn’t understand. The designated bathing time was 20 minutes, so he didn’t understand why they were gathering and bickering instead of getting in quickly.
“It’s super cold! Touch it.”
Elijah, who had taken off his clothes, dipped his hand in the water. A coldness that seemed like it would instantly freeze him to the bone stung his skin sharply. Without being flustered, he casually drew a magic circle on the water’s surface that he’d drawn until he was sick of it.
Soon, a green light appeared following the trajectory of the magic circle he’d drawn. In less than a few seconds, bubbles began rising from the water that started heating up.
“Wow, Elijah is the best as expected!”
Without anyone going first, the children began jumping into the water with splashes. White steam now billowed from the water that had quickly become hot.
They all washed together without separating boys and girls, and while they knew that body shapes differed according to gender, no one particularly distinguished or cared about that.
“Wow, it’s warm. Elijah is smart.”
Iris said with a giggle. Igrit, who had submerged his body deep in the water with only his face sticking out, jutted out his lips sulkily.
“I can do this much too.”
“Then why didn’t you do it before Elijah came?”
“……I was waiting to see if one of you would do it first.”
Elijah didn’t care what they said and washed himself. Master had left on a long journey to obtain food and daily necessities, and he didn’t want to become a wretched disciple who broke the rules taking advantage of that gap.
Last night, he had eaten meat stew for the first time in his life in Master’s room. The taste was so shocking it seemed to still linger in his mouth even now.
‘Is it that delicious?’
‘Yes, it’s exactly like what Daisy said. It’s delicious and has a cozy smell.’
‘Hm…… I’ll have to feed you meat more often from now on.’
Today, Master would probably obtain meat for them. But if he only played and broke the rules, how could he face him?
Elijah planned to wash up within 20 minutes and memorize the magic circle he’d learn today in advance. His heart rushed for no reason and his hands moved faster. Elijah washed himself briskly alone at a distance from the children who were playing around pouring water on each other’s heads, then came out and diligently dried off.
He picked up one outfit from among the identical clothes the children had carelessly taken off and slipped his arms through it. The shirt and pants that were originally white now looked gray because no matter how much they were washed, the old grime wouldn’t come off.
“Elijah, leaving already?”
“What about us when you leave!”
Elijah, who had just been about to move, looked back at the children calling him from the water.
“It won’t cool down that quickly.”
He spoke indifferently and immediately turned his back. He wanted to go to the classroom quickly. He wanted to go to the classroom and look at books. Squeak, squeak. His footsteps, which had quickened following his hurried heart, left footprints in the white snow.
“……”
The small two feet stopped in place. Elijah discovered an unfamiliar child a few steps ahead and froze in place.
Reddish-brown eyes sparkled clearly. The child was wearing a dark navy blue dress. Against that color, the child’s face looked even whiter.
The pale face that tilted its head slightly and gazed at Elijah was as pretty as a porcelain doll he’d seen on a store stall. The twin curly pigtails tied with red ribbons were as black as the night sky studded with stars.
“……”
The two children just stared blankly at each other for a while. Curious eyes examined Elijah thoroughly. Very slowly, a bright smile spread across the child’s face.
At that moment, Elijah completely forgot the taste of the meat stew he’d eaten last night. Dimples formed in cheeks flushed a peachy pink. The small lips opened, drawing a cute arc.
“Hello.”
For some reason, as soon as Elijah heard that voice, his heart sank with a thump.
It was the prettiest person he’d seen in his entire life.
* * *
“……would Elijah-ssi have fainted for no reason then? You must have done something that made him collapse!”
An unwelcome shouting echoed through his dizzy head. Elijah, who had opened his eyes blankly, looked at the spinning ceiling.
“Just wait until he wakes up! Whatever you did will be found out anyway……, huk, Elijah-ssi? Are you alright?”
Kalian, who had been shouting at Adam, spotted the awakened Elijah and quickly approached. Elijah, who barely managed to sit up while holding his head where sharp pain was striking, grabbed his clothes.
“Where is Rose right now?”
“……What?”
“The, the man I bumped into.”
