Side: The End
An Account of a Woman of Ratomi Village
I STEP OUTSIDE of the village chief’s house. It’s snowing—the first snow of the year. I hear voices shouting inside the house I just left. Lots of people yelling.
“Why did it have to come to this?”
My village was not wealthy, but every year, we had a good harvest of our unique crop: zaro. That was why we always managed to make it through the winter. But this year, our zaro crop failed.
“No…it wasn’t because of the zaro failure.”
Everything went downhill when Ruba, our fortune-teller, passed away. Actually, that’s not quite true, either. Ruba was murdered by our village chief.
I breathe on my cold fingertips to warm them. They’re red. Since food stores are low, I venture into the forest to forage for something to eat, even in the wintertime. Pickings are slim, making my days a harsh struggle.
“What if she’s out there right now…in a winter like this…?”
I used to have a little sister. A cute little sister, younger than four. I thought our lives would be the same forever. Then our parents changed abruptly. That was when everything ended. I had no idea what had happened. I was just…scared. Scared that my parents would reject me, too. So, I retreated into myself.
“I’m such a fool.”
One day, somebody threw something at my little sister. When it hit her, I felt a sting in my heart. But it lasted only a moment. I convinced myself that I was in the right…that my family was in the right.
“Our whole family is made up of fools.”
My mother and father are devout followers of the church. I thought they were a little abnormal, but I should have known better. My younger sister was a strange little girl. Sometimes she would murmur in a mysterious language I couldn’t understand in the slightest.
“She was there for me… She was the only one who was.”
My father and mother only loved our big brother since he had good skills. My skill is nothing special, so I always came last. Since all priority went to my big brother, a cherished promise was forgotten. When I was hiding alone, crying with grief, she silently stayed by my side. She was so kind. How could I betray her…?
CRASH!
A loud noise thunders from within the village chief’s house. I can hear sounds of people scuffling. The sound of feet, running. Screaming voices. Somebody is crying, too.
“It’s much colder today.” Maybe the snow will stick. If it does, it will be even harder to forage in the forest than it is now. “Ha ha, it’ll be hard, but there’s nothing else I can do.”
I remember the words the fortune-teller Ruba said to me: Do you honestly think that God would allow a worthless life to be born? The words she quietly told our family.
“I wonder if she really died?”
The village chief submitted a search request to the adventurer guild asking them to find missing villagers. But aside from one of them, they didn’t know which direction they’d run.
“The look on that village chief’s face when he read the report sure was funny.”
He threw a tantrum, red in the face.
“It was really painful to watch.”
The person whose escape route was known—that would be my little sister. The report signed by the head watchman at Ratome Village said, “The remains of a girl of that description were found.” A man named Captain Oght had written down the details: “The emaciated remains of a little girl were discovered in the dense part of the forest.” Watchmen Velivera and Roygurt were also on the scene. There were signs that she had been eaten by a beast. Since the wounds were grotesque, they had burned the corpse where it lay. The village chief didn’t seem to care and had nothing much to say about it. Which was rich, seeing as how he had tried to murder her.
“I’m just as evil as him, though.”
My own father had tried to kill my sister. My mother gave her blessing, knowing full well what he was going to do. My brother accepted it all without question. I turned a blind eye. We all killed her.
BANG!
The front door is right next to me, so I flinch when it slams open. I look toward the noise to see the village chief storm out, covered in blood.
“You’re not getting away! This is all your fault!”
The village chief takes off running. Several villagers follow behind. The chief is caught a few doors down from his house.
“If they beat him that much, he’ll die.”
The villagers’ anger had reached its peak, yet the chief still ordered them to gather food each and every day. He threw tantrums, threatening to raise taxes the next year. And in the end, the villagers snapped.
“There you are.”
I look toward the voice. It’s my father. Behind him are my mother and brother.
“What damn fool would ever let a bastard like you be chief?” my father growls.
The villagers cackle. My family looks on in bewilderment.
“Do you have a right to judge him when you let him order you to kill your own daughter?” I ask.
My father glares at me. All color drains from my mother’s face.
“All you villagers who stayed behind are all the same. You killed Ruba the fortune-teller.”
“N-no, we didn’t,” my mother protests, shivering.
“Yes, you did. You turned a blind eye and let it happen. Then you blamed it on my little sister.”
“We ain’t got a little sister!” my brother yells.
“We used to, remember? A beautiful, sweet little sister. We all drove her out of the house. We killed her, our own flesh and blood.”
“Shut up!” my father screams, his face red.
I hold my hard gaze. “Why did you do it? Our church teaches us to be kind to others. Did you know that?”
“I said shut up!” My father looks like he’s about to pounce on me.
“What if I don’t shut up? Oh, you’re gonna kill me, too?”
“Stop it!” my mom screams. “How dare you make your family cry when we’re in crisis!”
“In a crisis that you brought upon yourselves, right? You all sowed your seeds, so it’s time to reap them.”
The village chief isn’t the only one in the wrong. Every single person in this village bears the same sin on their back. My family and I carry not only that sin but also the sin of leaving the smallest member of our own family for dead.
“It’s impressive, isn’t it? That little girl survived three whole years all by herself, in a land where there’s nothing to eat in the wintertime.”
Three years had passed since we drove her away and she disappeared, and she survived those three years. So, a part of me still has hope. Hope that the little girl they found in the forest wasn’t my little sister after all. But the adventurer who discovered her was known to be quite a hero.
“Huh? Is he dead?”
I can’t hear the beating sounds I heard before. I look over to where the village chief had been earlier…and I see several villagers standing still in his place. Their anger has made them take things too far.
“Now you all have another sin to carry.”
“We had nothing to do with it,” my brother insists, his voice shivering. What does he even think he’s saying?
“But we saw it happen. We watched our village chief get beaten to death. How can we possibly have nothing to do with it?”
Everybody should know better. They know that kind of beating will kill a person, because this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Ratomi Village isn’t running very smoothly anymore. There isn’t much to eat, so the villagers kill the weakest among us.
“But we do it so we can survive.”
So we can survive?
“Then we should have left home earlier to earn some money.”
When our zaro sales plummeted, some of us thought of going to other towns and villages where we could earn money and send it home. The chief was strongly opposed to it. He was probably afraid his own crimes would get exposed.
“You’re all such fools.”
The truth always comes out in the end. Has the letter I wrote arrived by now? The letter I gave a traveler to bring to Captain Oght. Once it reaches him, I just know people will come to our village. Come here to arrest us all. We covered up a multitude of our chief’s crimes, after all. I wrote down every crime our villagers committed, omitting nothing.
“Wild, isn’t it? Every single person in this village is going to be sentenced to slavery,” I say.
My family’s faces stiffen with fear. I won’t have to spend much more time with them. The world would be better off with this village wiped off the map.
“I really miss you…”
I have faith that you’re out there somewhere, still alive.
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