A complete mess.
Miros’s head was chaotic. Literally, all kinds of things were mixed up and rolling around. It was so jumbled he couldn’t even dare to touch anything. Strange. Why did I think I shouldn’t speak? Why did I ‘think’ I couldn’t say it?
Perhaps because too many memories rushed in at once, his mind was still hazy. Yet he instinctively realized it. That I shouldn’t open my mouth. Though he himself didn’t know why.
“Miros, what’s wrong?”
Even to Levia’s eyes, the just-awakened Miros looked somehow loose.
It seemed like he still hadn’t properly come to his senses, and he also looked like he might melt away from his body’s heat. But his bright golden eyes were excessively sharp, rolling around busily as they surveyed the surroundings.
A strange state. With a just-in-case feeling, Levia carefully asked,
“You just called me Leri, right?”
Levia subtly approached and wiped Miros’s forehead with a wet cloth. The moment their eyes met, Miros froze as if his breath had stopped.
What should I do? Should I just say it? That I remember everything? But how am I supposed to say this? Separate from remembering, it was hard to properly recognize it. Things were just piled up haphazardly in his head, and he didn’t have confidence to pull out a single thing intact.
“…Did I… do that? When?”
It wasn’t a lie. Miros really didn’t know. When he’d said such a thing. Did I do that? I must have, since you’re asking. But why did I? Why did I call Leri ‘Leri’? No, wait. Is that the problem? Huh? How do I know that? Why did I forget this? No, I know this too. It was definitely erased. Hidden and carved out. Gouged deep and removed. It was even painted over thickly to cover it up?
What? How? Why?
“Why did I do that?”
At Miros’s question, Levia showed a troubled expression. If he doesn’t know, who would? Was it because he just woke up? Levia pressed a glass of water into Miros’s hand and asked again with a just-in-case feeling.
“Did you come here because your memories returned?”
Miros obediently received and drank it, stared at Levia blankly, then asked as if tossing it out.
“What memories?”
“Then how did you come?”
At Levia’s question, Miros’s head throbbed and without realizing it he pressed both hands to it and groaned in pain. He didn’t even notice the glass of water in his hand falling weakly and wetting the blanket. In that state, he muttered incomprehensible sounds.
“Did I come looking? Right, I did. But how did I come? By walking? No, that’s not the problem. Why did I come? What was I trying to do by coming? I don’t know that. I just came. I felt like I had to come. Right, that’s it. Is there? Isn’t there? No, that’s not it, it’s not that, it’s right. Is it right?”
Miros’s strange behavior didn’t end there. In that state, he burst into tears. Without even knowing he was crying. Levia, who had been watching Miros, was startled and examined him.
“Why? Why does it hurt? Strange… There’s no major damage?”
Levia was restless at Miros’s tears. Because he absolutely couldn’t understand why he was suddenly saying it hurt. There were many old traces, but he couldn’t find any damage that would be immediately fatal.
Well, of course. He’d just fainted trembling after being overwhelmed by Levia’s presence, that was all. There had been some minor injuries, but Levia had already healed even those. Yet he was crying saying it hurt, so what could be happening?
Miros himself was crying alone and couldn’t properly hear Levia’s fuss. He lay back down on the spot where he’d just gotten up. Then he curled up his body and wept soundlessly.
“Miros! Where, how does it hurt?”
For some reason, Miros couldn’t get his mind straight. He just kept muttering incomprehensible sounds and writhing in pain. Levia became confused along with him. Seeing him in pain when his body was in an impeccably robust state was driving him crazy.
—Ugly human hurts?
—Dying? Remove?
The Dryads who had been lurking nearby also gathered at the untimely commotion. They thought the human the Progenitor cherished might be dying. Though they didn’t know why he’d suddenly come here to die. At the Dryads’ whispers, Levia cried out convulsively,
“He’s not dead! He won’t die! I won’t remove him!”
Of course, the Dryads had no problem hearing and understanding those sounds, but he was so shocked he even spoke aloud. Meanwhile, Miros, who had been writhing in pain, went completely limp. He’d lost consciousness and collapsed again.
“Miros!”
Levia, not knowing what to do and calling Miros several times, could finally stop only after even more Dryads swarmed in.
***
Levia absolutely couldn’t understand. Everything was only questions.
—You really don’t know?
—…We don’t know either. They say no one saw.
—There seem to be some who saw from down there though.
No one saw Miros come up here.
To Levia’s eyes, it didn’t seem like he’d regained his memories either. From what he’d glimpsed, it didn’t seem like he’d lied. Because separate from Miros’s soul shaking with confusion, no signs of lying were revealed.
It was the same no matter who he asked. They said that one day, after suddenly meeting the leader of a human group, he just stared at empty air. They thought he was doing something strange like that, then suddenly ran recklessly out of nowhere. They didn’t know why. They didn’t know for what reason he started running either.
And after coming near the White Snake Mountain Range like that, no one witnessed him. Not the grass, not the trees. Even the birds and insects said they didn’t know. It truly became something no one knew.
—How did he come up?
That he came this far itself could be something that happened. Actually, it was nonsense, but they hadn’t blocked the approach itself. Somehow that was passable. But that he came up to Levia’s nest couldn’t be explained. No one had ever witnessed it.
If anyone had seen him in the first place, they would’ve stopped him right away. Separate from informing Levia, because he’d already given notice not to let humans in from the middle of the forest onward due to the previous incident. It was something Levia should have known about somehow.
“If you’re going to send him back anyway, isn’t now the best opportunity? He’s unconscious so he won’t throw a tantrum either.”
“…How can I just send him when I don’t even know why he’s hurting? What if he dies?”
“That’s his luck. This is already an adult. Aren’t you favoring him too much just because you think he’s pretty?”
Havi, who had returned to his den, was summoned again by Levia’s fuss. And going even further, he wailed loudly saying what if he died like this. Even after Havi grumbled all sorts of annoyances and told him he’d just fainted, he didn’t listen for a while before finally calming down.
Then he pressed everything around him. Asking if there really was no one who knew how the child came all the way here. But they really didn’t know. Havi waved his forepaw over the face of the obediently lying Miros and made a disgruntled sound.
“No, I can’t acknowledge that he’s pretty in the first place. This is a male individual so sturdy he’s ugly. Uglier than a quail.”
“…Miros is very, very pretty. And let’s move past that topic. That’s not what’s important now.”
“Where is there anything more important than this? Frankly, if you weren’t calling him ‘pretty,’ why would he be here? You should’ve thrown him out long ago. Even if an ugly human by your standards suddenly fell here, would you have made such a fuss like this?”
At Havi’s words, Levia’s mouth protruded like a duck’s. But he couldn’t say a single word. It’s true. If it had been an ugly individual, he would’ve been annoyed instead. He might have killed him directly and thrown him down below that mountain range. If he was pretty, he would’ve worried quite a bit. Though he would’ve sent him out in the end.
The reason Miros was lying here receiving such devoted care was because he was ‘pretty Miros’. Because he was Miros whom Levia liked and cherished so much, he was enjoying luxuries beyond his station.
“…Rather than that, I don’t know how he came up here.”
“His memories must have returned.”
“I checked when he woke earlier, and they hadn’t.”
“How do you know that? At first you said you didn’t know because your power remained.”
“When he woke I asked, and he didn’t know anything. He did unconsciously call me ‘Leri,’ but he didn’t even know he’d said that.”
“It could be a lie.”
“No. Would I not even know a mere human’s lies?”
“…That’s true.”
At Levia’s words, Havi responded sullenly. Though he thought it was much more credible that the memories had returned, it was also true that there was no way Levia wouldn’t be able to tell such a thing. There was also no possibility Levia would lie.
No matter how much Levia cherished Miros, there was no need to lie. If he’d wanted to keep Miros by his side in the first place, he would’ve just kept him captive. He’d wanted that himself too. After pondering silently for a while, Havi suddenly blurted out something that occurred to him.
“The path?”
“Path? What path?”
“Before, you made that path saying that pretty individual Raha would collapse after just 3 steps. You didn’t close it, did you?”
At Havi’s words, Levia’s mouth fell open.
“Goodness… How did I forget that?”
He’d completely forgotten after sending Raha back.
It was a ‘path’ he’d made before because Raha kept following him around saying he wanted to be together. Because Raha’s stamina was too weak, and he absolutely couldn’t travel alone on ordinary paths.
“Then, he must have come through there.”
“But… I made that when Raha was here. How would Miros know about it?”
“He has no memories anyway, right? Then even if you’d told him, not knowing would’ve been the same. He probably just tumbled in by chance. There’s nothing else to explain it, is there?”
Havi’s words made sense too. Though it still couldn’t be explained clearly, at least it explained how Miros could come directly up to Levia’s nest.
“Then, what now?”
“That’s up to you.”
Unlike Levia who didn’t know what to do and just stamped his feet, Havi was still indifferent.
