Chapter 4
“Ella, stay close. From here on, few people use this road, and it’s rough going.”
My father’s voice came from ahead, where he was pulling the cart.
Had a day already passed since we set out?
The forest was filled with birdsong and the rustling of leaves in the wind.
The mud, lightly damp from the morning moisture, pleasantly hugged my feet.
Yet, seeing the worry etched across my father’s face, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about this unusual experience.
“Father, Alex will be all right. So you don’t have to worry too much.”
I could only offer words of comfort to ease my father’s worries.
“Yes, there’s no use getting depressed. Let’s keep our spirits up and get there and back quickly.”
Fortunately, I saw my father’s face brighten, if only a little.
After traveling another day while taking in sights I had never seen before, we finally began to see towering walls in the distance.
“Now, Ella, this is Lugdonum, where Viscount Albert’s castle stands. It’s your first time here, isn’t it? There are all sorts of things here that you can’t see in our village.”
Unlike my smiling father, I smelled blood riding the damp wind and pricking my nose.
Three wolves lay sprawled around him.
My father looked at me as he wiped his ax.
The blood on his fingertips gleamed darkly in the sunlight.
The terrifying moment from only a few minutes ago came vividly back to me.
A sudden attack by wolves.
It was just when I had finally relaxed at the thought that we had reached our destination.
Grrr.
At the eerie sound coming from the darkness cast by the forest, my father shouted at me.
“Ella! Get back!”
With that brief shout, he yanked free the ax crudely fastened around his waist.
When the three wolves leaped from the darkness, strength filled his entire body, hardened by years of farming.
One wolf lunged toward his leg with a low growl.
My father inhaled.
A simple motion, bringing the ax down from above.
The heavy sound of iron driving into a head.
A weighty metallic clang rolled through the forest.
Thanks to decades of chopping firewood, his practiced, economical motion split the wolf’s head neatly in two.
But while he was retrieving his ax, the wolves began charging at him.
One lunged for his arm, and the other for his leg.
I had been hiding quietly behind the cart without any weapon, but I could no longer stay still.
I frantically scanned my surroundings.
A stone just the right size to throw was clearly visible.
My hand moved before my brain could give the order.
For an instant, even the air seemed to stop.
I couldn’t hear a thing.
The stones I had thrown countless times to survive on the battlefield.
That memory guided my arm.
“Damn it!”
He spotted the wolf too late and gritted his teeth as though prepared to sacrifice his arm; just as he was about to swing his ax at the wolf coming for his leg—
My arm swung of its own accord.
The stone struck the hind leg of the wolf that was leaping for his arm.
Only then did I realize what I had done.
Fortunately, my father wrote it off as mere luck and ended with a scolding not to do anything dangerous.
I finished replaying the memory and looked at my father.
“What will you do with these wolves? The pelts seem to be in pretty good condition. Wouldn’t we make some money if we sold them?”
A scene of violence that would be unfamiliar to an ordinary teenager.
But I possessed the complete memories of a soldier who had been through the grinder of war.
“Just as my daughter says, if we process and sell them, we could bring Alex something tastier.”
Father looked at my face for a moment before continuing.
“Then would you like to try doing one yourself? You seem pretty interested.”
“Is it really all right?”
“It’s all part of the experience. Besides, knowing how to skin one will be useful to you for a long time.”
My body trembled slightly at my father’s teasing words.
When I brought a hand to my mouth, I realized the corners of my lips had risen on their own.
Was the thought that I could do better than Father showing on my face?
Still, convinced we’d get more money if I handled it myself, I accepted his offer.
“Yes!”
At my cheerful reply, Father held out a dagger as if he had been waiting for it.
I could sense the fond amusement on his face at his young daughter’s little challenge.
The blade in my hand for the first time in a long while felt unfamiliar yet familiar.
There was no time to hesitate.
To get even a single coin more, I had to move quickly and precisely.
Skinning it and separating the bones from the flesh was something I had never once done with this body.
As the dagger opened the flesh, the smell of blood burst beneath my nose.
An old memory resurfaced.
Supplies dwindling one by one.
Comrades crying out from hunger.
Even then, I had cut into flesh like this to survive.
I had thought I’d forgotten the battlefield of Lumidia, but my fingertips still remembered the weight of that time.
Nausea surged up, but soon my fingertips began moving on their own.
The distinctive sound of slicing through the thin membrane just beneath the skin rang softly through the quiet forest.
The sensation brought back the feeling of cutting through a human body in my previous life.
As chunks of flesh fell away, strangely enough, my chest grew quiet.
The fact that this wasn’t human blood—and that human blood would never stain these hands again—reassured me.
How long had I been moving my body by relying on memory? Before I knew it, the cart was loaded with heavy pelts and chunks of meat.
“Daughter, you’ve been… strangely calm this whole time.”
My father’s gaze followed my fingertips.
As the blood gradually dried, it left marks resembling red brands.
“Where did you learn a skill like this?”
“I…”
My stiff lips couldn’t form a proper sentence, so all I could do was answer with an awkward smile.
Father was silent for a moment.
“Well… I suppose you can learn everything by watching others. Come on, if we dawdle any longer, the sun will set. Let’s get inside.”
He smiled.
But the smile did not reach his eyes.
His eyes remained fixed on my fingertips.
When we emerged from the forest, the silence was replaced by the murmur of people.
A long line stretched out before the city gate.
“Friend, do you know why the soldiers are acting like that today? They used to let us through if we slipped them a few coins. Why are they making such a fuss?”
“I don’t know, but I heard a rumor that a bandit gang appeared in a nearby village. Apparently, they leave tattoos on the bodies of those they attack.”
“Is that true? Good grief, with things this grim…”
The voices of people talking drifted over from ahead.
The line crept forward, making the time spent waiting feel meaningless.
The sun overhead blazed down on my face.
I felt my face gradually heating up.
Before long, the checkpoint was right ahead of us, and I saw a smoking censer.
A soldier kept pouring some sort of liquid into the censer.
His face was full of the boredom of someone forced to do something he didn’t understand.
As the scent rode the wind to my nose, my head grew strangely foggy.
It was a scent I had never smelled before.
It felt less like simple incense and more like I was inhaling something mixed into the air.
“Dad, did you see that censer the last time you came here?”
Having never seen anything like it even in my previous life, I gave up on trying to come up with an answer and turned to the side.
My father’s brow was furrowed.
“No. I’m not sure. There’s never been anything like that before.”
Father glanced around for a moment, then turned his gaze toward a woman standing behind us, whose expression suggested she knew what it was.
“Do you happen to know what that censer is?”
“My husband, who works at the castle, says they’ve ordered people to burn incense because the air has been foul lately. I suppose it’s to keep away insects.”
“They’re burning incense on that scale because of insects?”
“I really don’t know. I only heard it from someone else.”
“… Thank you for telling us.”
Something was strange, but there seemed to be nothing more I could learn.
It was only the tense atmosphere that was making my intuition especially sensitive.
“Next.”
When our turn came, the soldiers beckoned us forward.
“Open the luggage.”
“As you can see, it’s nothing but butter and baskets to sell, along with wolf by-products.”
The soldier’s gaze, which had been on the cart, stopped at my cheek.
“Why is that person’s cheek so red?”
He pointed out my cheek without a second thought.
His eyes held an inexplicable fear of something.
“It’s only because of the sunlight. Look at the sun right now.”
Despite Father’s explanation, the soldier continued looking at me for a moment.
“Hmm… I’ve confirmed it. The toll?”
“Here you are, sir.”
“Pass. Next.”
With the soldier’s stiff voice behind us, the cart’s wheels began to roll slowly.
The smell of incense followed us.
That smell stirred up an uneasy feeling.
The grumbling chatter of the soldiers leaning against the wall seeped into my ears.
“I hear there’s another red-faced one this time, too. The higher-ups will make another fuss.”
“How would I know? We can’t even slack off like usual. What kind of sudden disaster is this?”
My heart sank with a thud, and gooseflesh rose over my skin.
This isn’t merely a bandit checkpoint.
My intuition was ringing sharply.
It was a sharp wariness unlike the inspections I had conducted and undergone firsthand in my previous life.
It felt as though they were wary not of something physical, but of something invisible.
Yet my thoughts would not connect, as though the space ahead were shrouded in fog.
With no other choice, I left the softly spreading scent of incense behind and entered the town.
It was as though a wall had separated the two spaces, and a lively atmosphere enveloped us.
The rigid silence beyond the city gate and the wary gazes vanished as if they had never existed, replaced by an atmosphere brimming with positive energy.
The contrast between the two spaces felt uncanny.
As though someone had even refined the air here.
“Fresh onions for sale! Fresh onions that came in today!”
“Pretty miss, come take a look at this hairpin!”
The clear laughter of children running through the alleys and the booming cries of vendors hawking their wares could be heard everywhere.
The strange scent that had stung my nose vanished beneath the savory smell of freshly baked bread and the greasy aroma of skewers grilling.