Prologue I
(The Seventh Month of Human World Calendar 372)
Part 1
Grasping the axe.
Swinging upwards.
Striking down.
It might be just those actions, but if the mind was distracted even slightly, the reaction from the hard bark would bounce back relentlessly to both arms. Breathing, timing, speed, shifting of body weight, all of them must be perfectly controlled from the beginning, transmitting the hidden power from the heavy blade of the axe to the tree, producing a pleasant, clear, high-pitched sound.
While he could understand the theory well, actually doing it wasn’t that simple. Eugeo was given this task in the spring when he was ten, and it would be the second coming of summer since then, yet he could only get that pleasant feedback once out of ten swings. He was told by fellow axe users that his predecessor Garitta-jiisan always hit the bull’s eye, and even though he didn’t show his fatigue after brandishing the heavy axe, but after merely fifty times Eugeo’s hands went numb, his shoulders became sore, and he could no longer lift up his arms.
“Forty…… three! Forty…… four!”
He counted with his loudest voice to push himself while striking the axe on the great tree’s trunk, the sweat gushing out caused his eyes to blur, his hands became slippery, and his accuracy continually decreased. Partly due to his desperation, he grasped the woodcutting axe tightly and brandished it over his body.
“Forty…… nine! Fif……t……y!!”
His last strike was a big deviation from his usual skill, it hit the bark a distance away from the deep cut on the trunk, producing an ear-splitting metallic sound. Due to the reaction which was as if it could make a spark come out of his eyes, Eugeo dropped the axe, staggered a few steps back, then sat down on the thick moss.
While he repeated his rough breathing, he heard a voice mixed with laughter from his right.
“The good sound came out three out of fifty times. So the total is, erm, forty-one huh. It seems today’s Siral water is your treat, Eugeo.”
The owner of the voice, who was lying down slightly further away, was a young boy of a similar age. Eugeo didn’t reply immediately, but fumbled for the leather water canteen then picked it up. He greedily drank the water, which had become completely warm. After he became comfortable he closed it with the hard cork, then said,
“Hmn, yours is only forty-three, isn’t it? I’ll catch up soon anyway. Here, it’s your turn…… Kirito.”
“Yeah yeah.”
Kirito was Eugeo’s childhood friend and also his best friend, as well as his partner in this melancholy «Sacred Task» since spring last year. Kirito wiped the sweat off his black forelock, stretched his legs straight and raised his body. But he didn’t pick up the axe immediately; his hand was on his hip while he looked up above his head. Attracted by his action, Eugeo also looked up toward the sky.
The mid summer sky of the seventh month was still ridiculously blue, stuck at the center was the sun god Solus, which shone its overwhelming light from the sky. However, the light was obstructed by the branches of the great tree outstretched in all directions, most of it didn’t reach the roots where Eugeo and Kirito were.
At the same time the countless leaves of the great tree devoured the sun god’s blessing, its roots also relentlessly absorbed the favor of the earth god Terraria, allowing it to recover from Eugeo and Kirito’s hard work of steadily cutting it down. No matter how much they did during the day, after a night’s rest, when they came back the next morning, the tree would have already recovered half of the cut wounds from the previous day.
Eugeo sighed lightly as he looked back to the tree from the sky.
The great tree —— the «Gigas Cedar», its sacred name was given by the villagers, was the monster with a diameter of four mels, and had a height of seventy mels. The bell tower of the village church, which was the tallest building in the village, was only one quarter its height; to Eugeo and Kirito whose height only passed one and a half mels this year, this ancient titan was a very suitable opponent.
Is it unreasonable to cut down this guy using man power? —— Eugeo couldn’t help but think about this after seeing the cut on the trunk. The wedge-shaped cut wound had finally reached a depth of one mel, but the remainder of the trunk with three times the thickness was still healthy.
In spring last year, when he and Kirito were taken to village chief’s residence, as they were at the suitable age for the duty of «Chopping the giant tree», he had heard a mind-boggling story.
The Gigas Cedar had stretched its roots here long before Rulid village was founded, and the duty to cut the tree had been passed down the generations since the first settlers’ time. Counting from the first generation to his predecessor Garitta-jii, of the sixth generation, Eugeo and Kirito were the seventh generation. More than three hundred years had passed before they were given the duty.
————Three hundred years!
At that time, it was an unimaginable span for Eugeo, who had just reached his tenth birthday. Of course, that hadn’t changed even though he was eleven now. What he somehow could understand was, from the time of his parents, his grandparents, the time before that, and the time even further back, the amount of axe swings combined from those with this duty could be said to be infinite, and the result was just this cutting wound less than a mel deep.
Why was cutting down the great tree so important? The reason was explained in a severe tone by the village chief.
The Gigas Cedar, with its huge body and its excessive vitality, took away the blessings of the sun and earth gods from its surrounding area in an enormous range. Seeds sown on the land in the shadow of the great tree wouldn’t grow, any effort to plant anything near it was futile.
Rulid village was a part of the «Norlangarth North Empire», one of the four empires that divided and ruled over the «Human World», and it was also located in the remote northern region. In other words, this place could literally be called the edge of the world. North, east, and west, these three sides were surrounded by a steep mountain range, so in order to expand the fields or pastures, there was no way other than to cut down the forest in the south. However, that couldn’t be done due to the Gigas Cedar which was rooted at the entrance of the forest.
It had been said that its bark was as hard as iron, and even fire couldn’t cause the slightest burn, digging it up was also not possible as its roots were as deep as it was tall. Therefore the village founders had decided to chop its trunk down using the «Dragon Bone Axe» which could cut even iron, and the duty to do so had been passed down generations since then——
The village chief finished telling the mission in his trembling voice, it made Eugeo feel terrible, so he asked, why shouldn’t they just leave the Gigas Cedar alone and open up the forest further south.
Then the village chief replied in a frightening voice that cutting down the tree was their ancestors’ vow, that vocation had turned into the village’s custom to entrust chopping duty to two people. Next was Kirito, who tilted his head while wondering aloud why those ancestors chose to build the village here in the first place. The chief lost his words for a moment before going into a fiery rage, and hit Kirito’s and even Eugeo’s heads with his fist.
It had been a year and three months since then that the two continued taking turns with the Dragon Bone Axe and challenging Gigas Cedar. However, most likely due to their immature arms, their axe swing couldn’t make a deep cut into the tree trunk. The cut in the tree up until now was the result of the three hundred years of work, so it was natural that the hard work from the two young boys wouldn’t make much difference, they couldn’t feel any accomplishment from their work as a result.
No —— their mood, not only could it be seen, their clear form of depression seemed like it could be verified in reality too.
Kirito, standing beside Eugeo while staring wordlessly at Gigas Cedar, seemed to be thinking the same thing, then he briskly walked toward the trunk while stretching his left hand.
“Oi Kirito, don’t do it. The chief said not to peep excessively at the «Life» of the great tree, didn’t he?”
Eugeo hastily called out, but Kirito just glanced toward him while his usual mischievous smile floated on the edge of his mouth.
“The last time we looked was two months ago, it’s no longer excessively, just occasionally.”
“Always like this huh, it can’t be helped then. ……Oi, wait for me, let me look too.”
Eugeo whose body finally calmed down got up using the same movement Kirito did earlier and rushed to his partner’s side.
“Ready? Opening now.”
Kirito said in low voice, with his left hand out front, the index finger and middle finger stretched out tightly while the remaining fingers held close. A shape which looked like a creeping snake was drawn in the air before them. It was the most basic devoted symbol of the god of creation.
After slicing the symbol with his fingertip, Kirito immediately hit Gigas Cedar’s trunk. It didn’t make the dry striking sound it should have, but a clear sound as if it was from playing with silverware resounded softly. Then a small squared light window emerged out of the trunk.
Everything in the universe, regardless of whether it was able to move or not, had its existence governed by the god of creation Stacia in the form of «Life». Insects and flowers had a little, cats and horses had much more, and humans were given even more life than those. Then the trees in the forest and moss covered stones had many times more «Life» than humans. In all its forms, life had one similarity: it increased after being born, and once it reached the peak, continued to decrease. When life was completely depleted, animals or humans stopped breathing, the plants withered, and the rocks broke down.
«Stacia Window» was where the sacred text of the remaining Life was inscribed. It could be called out when a person with proper sacred power cut the symbol, then struck the target. While most could pull out the window of pebbles or grass, it was somewhat difficult to do so on animals, and for humans, it was not possible to pull the window out without sufficient knowledge in the sacred arts first. ——On the other hand, it was a little scary to look at one’s own window anyway.
In general, the window of trees were easier to look at than humans, but the degree of difficulty of the evil tree Gigas Cedar was as high as expected: Eugeo and Kirito only became able to call out the window about half a year ago.
There was a story that once, at the «World Central Axiom Church» in the capital city Centoria, the elder master of the sacred arts succeeded in pulling out the window of the earth god Terraria after a continuous ritual for seven days and seven nights. However, once the elder master looked at the earth’s Life, he became depressed, lost his sanity and later disappeared.
Upon hearing that story, Eugeo became a little scared not only to look at his own, but also the windows of large things like Gigas Cedar, but Kirito appeared not to care. This time as well, he put his excited face close to the floating shiny window. While Eugeo thought he sometimes couldn’t understand his childhood best friend, he lost to his curiosity, and looked into that surface.
The pale purple square window had figures written in a combination of straight and curved lines. Those were the ancient sacred letters, if it were only reading a few figures, Eugeo was able to do it, only writing them was strictly prohibited.
“Well……”
Eugeo used his finger to confirm it one by one while saying the figures,
“235,542.”
“Ah? ……what was it months ago?”
“Probably…… 235,590.”
“…………”
On hearing Eugeo’s reply, Kirito lifted his hands in an exaggerated manner, collapsed with his knees hitting the ground, then messed his black hair using his fingers.
“Just fifty! We worked hard for two months and only managed fifty out of 235 thousands! At this rate we wouldn’t cut it down within our whole life!”
“No, that wasn’t possible in the first place.”
Eugeo couldn’t do anything but answer with a bitter smile,
“The six generations of woodcutters before us worked hard for three hundred years, and the result was not even one-quarter…… To make it simple, hmm, it would take about eighteen generations, or nine hundred years more.”
“Y-o-u~~”
Kirito, who was crouching with his head in his arms, looked up to Eugeo, then suddenly grabbed Eugeo’s legs. Eugeo lost his balance due to the sudden attack, and collapsed onto the moss bed on his back.
“What’s with that honor student attitude! At least act more troubled with this unreasonable duty!”
Even though he said that as if he was angry, a grin floated on Kirito’s face while he rode Eugeo and messed up his hair.
“Uwa?, why you!”
Eugeo’s hands grabbed Kirito’s wrists and pulled hard. He then utilized the moment Kirito stiffened his body to resist, rolled vertically in a half circle, so now he was on top.
“Now, payback time!”
While shouting and laughing, he pulled Kirito’s hair with his dirty hands, but unlike Eugeo’s soft light brown hair, Kirito’s pointed black hair rendered his attack meaningless. Eugeo then switched to tickling Kirito’s flank.
“Ugya, you…… that’s, h-hahah……”
Kirito was running short of breath as he struggled against being held down and tickled, when suddenly a high voice came from behind them.
“You two——! Slacking off again!!”
At that moment, the fight between Eugeo and Kirito came to a complete halt.
“Uu……”
“This is bad……”
Both of them shrugged then fearfully turned around.
On the rock a little bit away from them, with both hands on her hips, a human figure with her chest protruding forward. Eugeo pulled out slightly, then spoke with a smile,
“H……Hey Alice, you’re pretty early today.”
“Not early at all, just the usual time.”
The figure made an unfriendly face, the long hair tied on both sides of her head shining with a golden light under the sunlight filtered through the foliage. The young girl jumped off the rock nimbly. She wore a bright blue skirt with a white pinafore, and held a wicker basket in her right hand.
The young girl’s name was Alice Schuberg. Daughter of the village chief, and she was of the same age as Eugeo and Kirito, eleven years old.
For all children living in Rulid —— no, in the northern region, it was a tradition that they would be given their «Sacred Task» and become apprentices in the spring of their eleventh year; however, Alice was the only exception, she went to school at the church instead. She was given private lessons from Sister Azariya in order to extend her talents in the sacred arts further as the best child in the village.
However, Rulid wasn’t wealthy enough to let the village chief’s eleven-year-old daughter merely study all day long, no matter how much talent she had. Everyone who could work must work, they had to continue repelling the constant attacks from drought, long period of rain, pests; all of which could shave off the Life of the crops and livestock —— in other words, from the «God of Darkness Vector’s Prank». It was only when the harsh winter arrived that all the villagers could finally be at peace.
Eugeo’s house had wheat fields in a wide cultivated land to the south of the village, his father Orick and his ancestors were farmers. After knowing Eugeo, one of his three sons, was chosen for the chopping mission his mouth was filled with words of delight, but in part of his mind he surely held some disappointment. Of course they would receive the payment for the chopping mission from the village vault, but the fact that there was one less hand to help in the field wouldn’t change.
In practice, the eldest son of each house would be given the same Sacred Task as their father: in the case of a farmer’s household, their daughter, next son, and the third son would also follow this standard. Children of the tool shop’s owner would continue working in the tool shop, a guard’s child would become a guard, and the village chief’s child would succeed them as the next chief too. Rulid village had maintained this custom with almost no change for a few hundred years, the adults said that it was the gift of divine protection from Stacia, but Eugeo could faintly remember the incompatibilities in their story.
Why, if the adults thought about expanding the village, why was there not a single change until now? He still couldn’t understand. If they really wanted to expand the fields, they could just take a little detour and leave the troublesome tree alone to be able to open up the southern forest further away. However, the chief, who was the wisest man, didn’t have the faintest urge to review those old traditions.
Therefore, no matter how much time passed, Rulid village was still poor, so the chief’s daughter Alice could only study in the morning as it was necessary that she had to tend to the livestock and clean the house in the afternoon. Her first task after studying was to bring lunch to Eugeo and Kirito.
With the wicker basket hanging on her right arm, Alice nimbly jumped down from the big rock. As she was on the verge of letting the next round of thunder fall off her small lips, Eugeo quickly got up while shaking his head.
“We didn’t slack off, really! We already finished our morning job.”
Alongside Eugeo’s quick excuse, Kirito, behind him, reacted accordingly with “Yeah yeah.”
Alice’s pupils emitted a strong light to the two again, then her cheeks softened.
“If you have enough energy to fight after finishing, I wonder if I should ask Garitta-san to increase the workload for you two?”
“A-Anything but that!”
“Just kidding. ——Well, let’s quickly have lunch. Today is so hot, if we don’t eat it soon, it’ll go bad.”
Alice then put the wicker basket on the ground, took a large sized cloth from inside, and spread it out. She selected a flat area and laid the cloth down, on which Kirito quickly took off his shoes and jumped over to sit on it. Eugeo sat down after him, then the food was lined up one by one in front of the two hungry workmen.
Today’s menu was salted meat and baked bean stuffed pie, black bread cheese sandwiches and sliced smoked meat, several kinds of dried fruit, and milk squeezed in the morning. Even though the food aside from the milk could be well preserved, the intense sunlight of the seventh month could still rob «Life» away from the food without mercy.
Alice told Kirito and Eugeo, who were nearly diving into the food, to ‘hold on’, as if she was commanding dogs, then quickly sliced the symbol in the air and confirmed the «Window» of each food starting with the bisque jar of milk.
“Uwa, the milk has ten minutes remaining, the pies have barely fifteen minutes. And I even ran here…… well, then we’ll just have to eat quickly. But make sure to chew it properly too.”
When the Life of the food was exhausted, it became so-called «Rotten Food», of which even a single bite would cause terrible symptoms such as stomach ache to those without a very strong stomach. Eugeo and Kirito were already irritated enough and started biting the big sliced pie without saying a word.
The three of them continued chewing their food without talking. It was obvious with the two hungry young boys, but Alice also made one wonder where she put all the food she ate with her slender abdomen. The food was cleared up one by one. First was the three slices of pie, followed by nine slices of black bread, then the jar of milk was depleted, after that, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief.
“——How did it taste?”
It was Eugeo who answered Alice’s question in his serious tone, as she cast a side glance toward them.
“Yeah, today’s pies are good. Your skills sure have improved, Alice.”
“I-Is that so? I still feel there was something missing in the taste though.”
Embarrassed, Alice said while facing sideways, Eugeo exchanged a wink with Kirito before smiling. Their boxed lunch had been made by Alice since last month, but even as it was declared so, the difference between the food made with help from her mother, Sadina-obasan, and without was obvious. They understood that techniques couldn’t be acquired without practicing for a long time, and that applied to everything —— however, Eugeo and Kirito also understood that it was better not to let it out of their mouth.
“Anyway——“
Kirito said while pinching a yellow marigo from the dried fruit bottle.
“With the trouble it takes to make delicious boxed lunch, I want to eat it at a slower pace. I wonder why the heat has to make the food go bad……”
“Why? Hmmm……”
This time, without hiding his bitter smile, Eugeo shrugged in an exaggerated manner.
“You said a weird thing huh? Summer making Life go down faster is just how things work. Be it meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, they become bad immediately if you leave them alone, right?”
“I know that, I asked why, didn’t I? During winter, even if you left raw salted meat outside for many days, it still wouldn’t go bad, would it?”
“That’s…… because winter is cold.”
Kirito bent his lips like an unreasonable child at Eugeo’s answer. His black pupils, which were unusual in the northern region, shone with the light of disobedience.
“That’s right, it’s just as Eugeo said, the cold will make the food last longer. Not just in the winter. If it’s cold, even during this season, we could still keep the food for a long time.”
This time Eugeo was dumbfounded. He lightly kicked Kirito’s shin with his toe.
“Don’t say it like it’s easy. Cold? Summer is hot, that’s why it’s summer. Are you thinking about using the absolutely taboo weather control art to call snow down? The next day the Integrity Knights from the capital would fly here to get you.”
“Y-Yeah…… Nothing we can do……? I feel like there is a way, some easy way……”
While Kirito muttered that with his frowning face, Alice who was quietly listening to their conversation while using her finger to curl the tip of her pigtail hair up until now said,
“It’s interesting.”
“W-What do you mean, Alice?”
“No, not about using the banned art. It doesn’t need to be at a scale enough to cover the entire village, but just small enough to be able to put into this boxed lunch basket is good enough, isn’t it?”
On hearing what she said as if it was perfectly normal, Eugeo unintentionally turned to Kirito, who was nodding. A smile floated on Alice’s face before she continued,
“There’re a few things which are cold even in summer. Like water from the deep well, or the leaves of Silve. If we put those in the basket, wouldn’t it become cold inside?”
“Ah…… that’s true.”
Eugeo folded his arms and thought.
At the center of the open space in front of the church, there was a fearfully deep well which had been dug when Rulid village was founded: the water drawn from it was so cold that it could make hands go numb even in summer. Also, in the northern forest, there were some Silve trees growing: their leaves were cold and released a pungent aroma when squeezed, they were very useful as treatment for bruises. Probably having a jar of water from the deep well, or wrapping the pie with Silve leaves would make it possible to keep the boxed lunch cold while carrying it between places.
However, Kirito, who’d also paused to think, slowly shook his head and said,
“Just that, I think it won’t work. The well water becomes lukewarm just a minute after it is drawn, Silve leaves might keep its coolness longer, but I don’t think it could keep the insides of the basket cold long enough to cover the distance from Alice’s house to Gigas Cedar.”
“So, do you have any other methods?”
Alice, whose good idea was shot down, asked while pouting. Kirito scratched his black hair in silence for a while, then suddenly said in a low voice,
“Ice. With a lot of ice, it’d be more than enough to keep the boxed lunch cold.”
“Oh you……”
Alice shook her head in amazement.
“It’s summer now. Where exactly can you find ice? Even the grand market in the capital won’t have it!”
She said in a tone like a mother scolding her unreasonable child.
Eugeo, on the other hand, could recall the bad feeling, as he had seen Kirito making this tight-lipped face before. This childhood friend, when such a light floated in his eyes, when he spoke in such a tone, Eugeo knew from experience that Kirito was thinking about something up to no good. Inside his head, he recalled when Kirito took the honey of the emperor bee to the eastern mountain, or when he broke the jar of milk which had expired a hundred years ago in the church’s cellar, those scenes floated and disappeared in quick succession.
“W-Well, it’s fine, isn’t it? There’s nothing wrong with eating in a hurry anyway. Also, if we don’t start our afternoon work soon we’ll be late going back.”
Eugeo said while quickly moving the empty plates back to the wicker basket, as he wanted to break off this disturbing topic. However, when he looked at Kirito’s pupils which were shining brilliantly, as if he had some idea, he inevitably realized that his fear had already become reality.
“……What is it, what plan do you have this time?”
His question was mixed with resignation, Kirito smiled before answering,
“Hey…… Looong ago, Eugeo’s grandfather told us a story, remember?”
“Hmm……?”
“Which story……?”
Aside from Eugeo, Alice also tilted her head slightly.
Before Stacia summoned Eugeo’s grandfather to her side two years ago, a lot of legends were packed behind that white beard of his. While sitting in the rocking chair in the garden, he always told stories to the three children sitting near his legs. Strange stories, exciting stories, scary stories: there were hundreds of those stories, so Eugeo didn’t know which story Kirito was referring to. Then his black haired childhood friend coughed while raising his index finger, before saying,
“Summer Ice, it’s nothing but that, right??Bercouli and the Northern White……?”
“Oi, stop it, you’re joking, right?”
Eugeo interrupted without listening to the end while swinging his head and hands violently.
Bercouli, among the ancestors who founded Rulid village, was the strongest sword user, who’d served as the first generation’s guard chief. But since he’d lived three hundred years ago, there were only a few remaining tales of his bravery, and the story Kirito mentioned was one of the most bizarre among them.
On a certain day during the peak of summer, Bercouli noticed a big clear rock floating in the river to the east of the village. Upon picking it up, it turned out to be a lump of ice. Bercouli, in his amazement, walked upstream along the river. Before long, he arrived at the end of the world, the «Mountain range at the Edge», and as he kept following the narrow river, he faced a huge cave opening.
Bercouli stepped into the cave against the blowing freezing wind, and after he overcame various dangers, arrived at the largest hall. What he saw there was a huge white dragon, which was said to protect the Human World’s boundary. The figure of the dragon, its body curled over an incalculable amount of assorted treasures, made Bercouli realize it was sleeping, but even with his courage, he still approached it on tiptoe. Among the treasure, he discovered a beautiful long sword, and he really wanted to own it no matter what. He softly took the sword without waking the dragon up, and ran away as fast as he could —— that was the plot summary. The title was?Bercouli and the Northern White Dragon?.
Even for the mischievous Kirito, surely he wouldn’t be thinking about breaking the village’s rules to go beyond the Northern pass and searching for the real dragon, would he? While half praying, Eugeo fearfully asked,
“You mean, we’ll watch Ruhr river and wait for an ice block to float down…… is that right?”
However, Kirito snorted before simply saying,
“Waiting like that, the summer will just end before we can get anything. I don’t want to imitate Bercouli and go find the dragon. In that story, it mentioned the icicles at the entrance of the cave, right? Just two or three of those would be enough for testing on the boxed lunch.”
“You, like I said……”
Eugeo became speechless for several seconds, then he turned to his side, looking for Alice to substitute him in objecting this reckless boy’s ideas. Then he noticed that her blue pupils were shining with a brilliant light, he dropped his shoulders in his mind.
Eugeo and Kirito were the number one brat duo of the village, they made elderly people sigh and scold the duo on a daily basis. However, only few knew that their many misdeeds were secretly aided and abetted from behind by Alice, the village’s number one honor student.
That Alice currently had her right index finger at her lips, as she remained silent for several seconds, suddenly blinked and declared,
“——That’s not a bad idea.”
“N-Not you too, Alice……”
“Certainly, only children were prohibited from going beyond the Northern pass. Try to recall properly. The exact sentence of the rule said, [Without adult supervision, children must not go play beyond the Northern pass.]”
Eugeo and Kirito unintentionally exchanged glances.
The village’s rules or «Rulid Villager’s Standards» as its formal name was the old writing half in paper and half in leather, its two cen thickness was kept inside the village chief’s residence. It was the first thing all children who went to church school had to memorize. And after that, after having to hear their parents and the elderly keep saying ‘In the rules’, ‘According to the rules’, the rules were ingrained in their heads by the time they turned eleven —— was what they thought, however, it seems that Alice accurately remembered all of the text, word for word.
……No way, don’t tell me even the empire’s fundamental law which is two times thicker has also…… no, even perfectly memorizing the village rules is already……
While Eugeo’s glance was filled with such thoughts, Alice cleared her throat once, then continued in a teacher-like tone,
“Isn’t it right? We aren’t going there to play, that’s forbidden by the rules. But searching for an icicle isn’t playing. Prolonging the Life of the boxed lunch isn’t just for us, it also helps people who work on the fields and pastures, right? So this can be interpreted as a part of work too.”
After the flowing speech, Eugeo exchanged glance with Kirito again. Although his partner’s black pupils initially seemed to have some slight hesitation, but it was immediately melted away like an ice block floating in a river in summer——
“Yeah, that’s right, absolutely right.”
While folding his arms, Kirito nodded with a serious face.
“Because it’s work, even if we go beyond the pass to the «Mountain range at the Edge», it still doesn’t break the village’s rules. Look, Balbossa-san is always saying, right? ‘Work isn’t just that which was ordered, if you’re free then look for work!’, like that. If they get angry, we can just refer to his saying, then it should be fine.”
The Balbossas were a wealthy family which owned the village’s largest wheat fields. The current head of the house, Nigel Balbossa was a fifty year old man who still had a good body; even though his house could harvest many times more than the rest of the village, he still wasn’t satisfied, and whenever he met Eugeo on the street, he always greeted Eugeo with a sarcastic ‘Still can’t cut down that annoying Cedar yet?’. Rumor said that he’d asked the chief for priority to cultivate the new land once Gigas Cedar has been cut down. Eugeo’s response was, ‘Before that happens, your Life will be long gone,’ of course he only said so in his mind.
Even though Kirito’s idea to use Nigel’s words as an excuse for going beyond Northern pass was attractive, but having served as the restraint of the group for so long made Eugeo unable to stop saying ‘But’.
“……But, going to the Mountain range at the Edge isn’t breaking just the village rules but ‘that’ too, right? Even if we go past the pass and arrive at the base of the mountain, we still can’t enter the cave……”
Upon hearing that, Alice and Kirito made a serious face.
«That» which Eugeo said was the absolute law which governed all people of the vast Human World, its authority was far beyond the «Norlangarth North Empire Fundamental Law», let alone the «Rulid Villager’s Standard» —— Its name was «Taboo Index».
It was issued by the «Axiom Church», the great tower which seemed to reach the heavens, located in capital city Centoria. The thick book which was bound in pure white leather was provided not only to the north empire that Eugeo lived in, but also at least one to every town and village in the east, south, and west empires.
The Taboo Index, unlike the village rules and the empire’s laws, just as its name implied, was the list of «Things one does not attempt». It started with a wide range of taboos like «Treason against the Church» or «Murder», «Thievery», on to more mundane entries like the limit of beasts and fish to be caught each year, or food that can’t be fed to the livestock; the number easily exceeded one thousand entries. For all children attending school, aside from learning to write and calculate, the most important subject was to memorize all of the Taboo Index. —— Or rather, not teaching the Index in school is considered to be breaking the Index.
Although the Taboo Index and the Axiom Church possessed such tremendous authority, but there seemed to be land it couldn’t extend to. Beyond the «Mountain range at the Edge» which enclosed the world was the Land of darkness —— or «Dark Territory» in the sacred words. Therefore, traveling to the Mountain range at the Edge was already prohibited by the Index in the first place. To Eugeo, it was meaningless to only go to the base of the mountain without going into the cave.
Alice would find the way to challenge the Taboo Index like always, but thinking like that is already a great taboo in itself. Eugeo stared at his other childhood friend while thinking so.
Her long eyelashes brightened under the noon sunlight filtered through the foliage like a very fine line of golden thread, Alice sank into silence for a while —— Soon after, she suddenly lifted her face, then said with the usual disobedient light shining in her pupils,
“Eugeo. Your prohibited term is inaccurate again.”
“Eh…… you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying. What is in the Index is like this: The first chapter, third passage, eleventh paragraph,?Not anyone is to go beyond the Mountain range enclosing the edge of Human World?……Beyond the mountain, naturally it means «Climb beyond». It doesn’t include going into a cave. Also, our objective isn’t to go beyond the mountain range, but to obtain ice, right? There is no?Do not search for ice in the Mountain range at the Edge?written in the Taboo Index at all.”
To the words gushing smoothly out in Alice’s sweet and clear voice like a church’s smallest bell, Eugeo didn’t say another word. Indeed, he felt what Alice said was somewhat correct.
——But, up until now we haven’t gone to the Northern pass before, we have only followed the Ruhr river up to the twin ponds, I don’t know what lies beyond that, this is the season that has many annoying bugs by the waterside too……
While Eugeo was still stubbornly thinking in circles for a way to retreat, Kirito slapped his back —— with a force not enough to reduce his Life —— before exclaiming,
“Look, Eugeo, if Alice, who studies the most in the village, says so, then there is no doubt about it! Alright, then it’s decided, on the next rest day we’ll go search for the white dra…… erm, I mean, search for the cave of ice!”
“Then it’s better if the boxed lunch is made using the ingredients which lasts a bit longer.”
Looking at the bright faces of his both childhood friends, Eugeo sighed within his mind before responding “Yeah,” weakly.
Part 2
Apparently, the weather was good on the third rest day of the seventh month.
Only on rest days were children above ten, who had already been given their Sacred Task, allowed to play around until dinner as they had in their childhood. Eugeo and Kirito usually spent it doing things like fishing and practicing their sword skills with other boys, however today they left their homes before the morning mist even disappeared, and waited for Alice under the old tree at the edge of the village.
“……She’s slow!”
Even though he had been waiting with Eugeo for only a few minutes, Kirito grumbled,
“I can’t understand why dressing has a higher priority than coming on time to girls. Maybe in two years she will be like your sister, who had her clothes dirtied in the forest and refused to wear them afterwards.”
“It can’t be helped, girls are like that anyway.”
Having said that with a bitter smile, Eugeo then suddenly thought about what would happen in two years time.
Alice would still be a child without a Sacred Task, people around her would still tolerate her preference of being together with Eugeo and Kirito. But since she was the daughter of the village chief, it had been partially decided that she had to act as a standard model for the other girls in the village. In the not so distant future, she would be prohibited from playing with boys, and no doubt she would have to take lessons not only in the sacred arts but also in conduct.
Then…… what would happen after that? Would she have to marry into someone’s house?, like Eugeo’s eldest sister Sulinea, If that’s the case, what would this partner think……?
“Oi, you look so absentminded. Did you sleep well last night?”
With a sudden stare from Kirito with his doubtful expression, Eugeo nodded in a hurry.
“Y-Yeah, I’m alright. ……Ah, there she comes.”
Upon hearing light footsteps, he pointed in the direction of the village.
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