Chapter 20
Everything in the world is inevitability disguised as coincidence.
If you look closely, everything has its own reasons.
So I suppose I could say it was inevitable that my sister died.
I understood it in my head.
My heart simply couldn’t accept it.
Why did my kindhearted, gentle sister have to die?
Of all the countless people in the world, why did it have to be her?
I would’ve rather died in her place.
I’d thought that countless times back then.
It was pointless thinking, but I still wished my sister had lived instead of me.
It was a wretched life.
Days when even getting enough to eat was difficult.
Days when I had to throw myself into filth just to survive.
Days when we endured the bitter cold by sharing each other’s warmth.
Why had we endured all of that?
How had we managed to persevere and hold on?
Because more than anything, we believed, again and again, in a day far in the future when we could say we’d gone through hard times together.
And yet, weren’t we happy now?
We believed with all our hearts that a sunny day would come when we could smile and say that to each other.
Amelia.
My caring sister.
My kind sister.
My foolish sister.
And now, my sister, whom I can no longer see.
I looked at Aria, who shared her name and face with her.
Aria quietly watched me as I fell silent.
She didn’t rush me or press me.
The way she listened to me brought to mind a devout believer.
No, she was a Saintess, so she was a devout believer.
I slowly continued.
“So I went outside the village.”
I went out prepared to die.
Every step I took, I risked my life.
“……It must have been dangerous.”
“I wasn’t in my right mind back then. No, that’s not it. Even if I’d been thinking clearly, I would’ve gone to find her.”
She was everything to me.
When I said that, Aria lowered her head against my chest.
She looked as if she were trying to hold back her emotions.
“……Did you find her?”
Her voice sounded so pained, you’d think you were the one who’d gone through it.
Still, seeing her like that didn’t bother me.
If anything, I was grateful.
Grateful that my story had moved her so deeply.
“I did.”
After overcoming one obstacle after another, I found Amelia.
Or should I even call it finding her?
There was only an arm.
My sister’s body…
“……Just her arm?”
“Yeah, there was nothing but an arm lying there. Honestly, it was a miracle even that was left.”
Aria’s black eyes trembled.
As if she were imagining the shock I must have felt back then.
“How did you know it was Miss Amelia’s arm?”
“She was clutching the ruby ring. That’s how I knew for sure.”
The ruby ring.
Amelia had somehow found the very thing the boy had asked for as a joke.
I gave a bitter smile.
“She was gripping the ring so tightly, I could barely pry her fingers open.”
Even as the monsters tore her body apart, it seemed she’d held on to the ring with all her might.
Who had she been so desperate to do that for?
There was no point in asking.
“……Hic.”
Perhaps overwhelmed by her emotions, Aria burrowed into my arms.
Like a child unable to withstand the bitter cold, seeking warmth.
Just like our sensitive Saintess.
I stroked her small head.
“Are you crying?”
When I looked at Aria’s eyes, they were quite damp.
Her expression was so fragile that I thought she might burst into tears if I made the story any more tragic.
I didn’t much like seeing Aria make such a miserable face.
It was making me feel down, too.
“Why, why are you so calm about it?”
Aria’s question was thick with tears.
I turned her question over in my mind.
Why was I so calm?
“Because it’s in the past.”
That was right.
It had all happened long ago.
It no longer hurt so much that my heart felt like it would stop.
My chest no longer felt as heavy as if it had a steel beam lodged inside.
The only thing I couldn’t bear was…
The fact that I was calmly telling someone my sister was dead.
My story continued.
* * *
Ashtein arrived at the place the boy had told him about.
It was a lavish mansion.
The knights he’d seen before stood guard at the entrance.
Their icy gazes settled on Ashtein.
“……I brought what you promised me.”
After the knights checked the ring Ashtein was carrying, they let him into the mansion.
Following their instructions, Ashtein arrived at a guest room.
He waited quietly for the boy.
A little while later, the boy opened the door and came in.
He stretched and let out a long, lazy yawn.
Must be nice.
Ashtein held back the urge to grimace.
Whatever the case, this guy hadn’t killed his sister himself.
Blaming him would be nothing but taking out his anger on the wrong person.
Ashtein spoke in a hoarse voice.
“I found it. The ring.”
He showed him the ruby ring stained with his sister’s blood.
The boy’s eyes sparkled more than ever when he saw it.
“Oh, you really found it?”
He sounded as if he hadn’t expected Ashtein to find it.
Ashtein was disgusted, but held it in.
“But where’s the girl?”
Ashtein couldn’t answer that question.
If he did, he’d fall apart after barely managing to hold himself together.
“………”
Unaware of how Ashtein felt, the boy continued speaking.
“Ah, I see. She died, huh? Well, there are lots of monsters around this time of year. Nothing you can do about it, I guess.”
The boy nodded as if he felt not the slightest bit of guilt.
Ashtein didn’t want to talk to this lunatic anymore.
So he cut straight to the point.
“Give me the gold coin, like you promised.”
The boy frowned for a moment at Ashtein’s attitude, but then put on that hateful smile as if nothing had happened and took a gold coin from his pocket.
“Oh, right. Here.”
He flicked the coin with his thumb.
Rrrr…
The gold coin rolled across the floor.
Ashtein stared at it with empty eyes.
His sister had died for that one measly coin.
Just one coin.
That piece of trash was the price of the only blood relative he had in the world.
“Aren’t you going to pick it up? I’ll take it back if you don’t.”
“……I’ll pick it up.”
Ashtein was just bending down to pick up the coin when it happened.
Tink, tink, tink.
He heard something else rolling.
But this time, it wasn’t the smooth sound of a coin.
“Oh, my mistake.”
The boy had dropped something.
Tink, tink, tink.
He dropped another one.
Tink, tink, tink.
He kept dropping them.
Before long, they had piled up on the floor.
They were the ruby rings the boy had originally asked the Ashtein siblings to bring him.
“……What is this?”
“Oh, this? It’s a ring. What else would it be?”
Ashtein clenched his fist and trembled.
“………You had this many, so why did you ask us to find one?”
The boy’s gaze lingered on the ceiling for a moment.
“Because it’s fun?”
Fun?
What was?
Was it fun that his sister had died?
Where on earth was the fun in that?
His head throbbed and rang.
The world turned gray.
Ah, why had I been born into such an unfair world?
Why did I have to go through something so unfair?
Why had you had to die?
Ashtein could hold back no longer.
He lunged at the boy.
Had the boy seen it coming?
Knights Ashtein hadn’t noticed before appeared, knocked him down, and restrained his arms.
Even after Ashtein was thrown to the floor, he raised his head and looked at the boy.
The hatred engraved deep in his heart was directed at the boy.
“You son of a bitch!”
The boy covered his ears as if Ashtein were being noisy, then shrugged.
“Why are you getting so worked up? It’s a good deal for both of us. I get to enjoy some cheap entertainment for a single gold coin, and you get to survive the winter with one. It’s a shame your sister died, but what can you do?”
I have to rip that mouth off.
I have to tear it to shreds and feed it to the fish.
Pinned down by the knight, Ashtein struggled violently.
He knew he wasn’t moving an inch, but he couldn’t give up.
If he, her little brother, gave up here, who would get angry on his sister’s behalf?
Who would speak up about the injustice she’d suffered?
Who could make her pain known?
Ashtein glared at the boy with bloodshot eyes.
If he could kill someone just by glaring, he would’ve killed the boy a hundred times over with that venomous stare.
“I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll kill you!”
“Ugh, you’re so noisy. Give him a good beating and toss him out, Sir Taylor.”
The boy gave a mocking wave as the knights dragged Ashtein away.
What a fun day, the boy thought.
Unfortunately, there was one thing this noble boy had overlooked.
Ashtein had been chosen to become a Hero.
And on that day, the Hero awakened.
* * *
“You awakened your Hero’s power there?”
Aria couldn’t help asking, despite how out of place the question was.
“It just sort of happened.”
“……So what happened after that?”
“What do you think?”
He made a slashing gesture across his throat.
That alone was enough to guess what had happened next.
“Even if you awakened the power of a Hero, you’d only just awakened it. Wasn’t it dangerous to fight the knights?”
“It was dangerous. I almost died, too. Well, if I’d died there, I wouldn’t be here talking to you now.”
“………Please don’t say that.”
Ashtein poked Aria’s cheek a few times and smiled.
“Anyway, that’s why I’m so obsessed with hunting monsters.”
It was a complicated matter.
And it was also not something she should have asked about out of curiosity.
Aria hated her past self.
She resented herself for thoughtlessly prying at someone else’s scars.
“I’m sorry I asked.”
Had he noticed her self-reproach?
Ashtein gave her a gentle smile.
“Hmm, no. I wanted to tell you.”
“……….”
Aria looked up at Ashtein.
His eyes were full of regret.
The corners of his mouth were somehow bitter.
Had Ashtein always looked this sad?
Where had her fluttering feelings gone? All that remained was a pain as heavy as stone.
At the sight of her, he spoke quietly.
“Do you pity me?”
“Is that wrong?”
“It’s up to you whether you do or not.”
Aria sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
Ashtein waited for her to calm down, then continued.
“Since then, there’s been one conviction that’s stayed with me.”
“A conviction?”
“It’s nothing grand.”
“What is it?”
“That I’ll protect my people, even if it costs me my life.”
Aria’s chest tightened.
Those words were his burden, the knot in his heart, his shackles, and his brand.
At the same time, they were a vow to himself, powerless as he’d been when he lost his sister.
“That’s why I want to ask you what happened to you here.”
His gaze rested on Aria, filled with endless tenderness.
The question had come so suddenly that Aria couldn’t utter a word.