Chapter 16
-Whoooosh.
An untimely torrential downpour was trying to block our path forward in every way it could.
“Damn it, this isn’t usually a country with this much rain…!”
“Save the complaints for later.”
“More importantly, this is the right way, isn’t it, Ren!?”
Running through the downpour, I nodded in response to Huey’s question.
“I came this far with Martin yesterday, so this is the right way.”
It turned out that playing with the little ones who had come to visit us first thing in the morning had helped.
So, looking at the uphill road beyond the route we had been unable to cross yesterday because it was flooded, I shouted.
“That’s the quarry!”
After crossing the road, where the water was slowly rising, we climbed all the way to the top of the slope.
The first thing that came into view was a huge quarry cut into tiers like a staircase.
“Where’s Mr. Hanson?”
“There he is.”
“…Ugh. What a godawful location.”
And at the very bottom of that quarry,
there were rocks piled high in front of a channel built to drain groundwater and rainwater gushing out during work,
with a man trapped between them, having narrowly avoided being crushed.
“Mr. Hanson!!”
Just as Irene had told us, Huey found Hanson trapped while opening the blocked channel and shouted.
Immediately afterward, I hurriedly covered Huey’s mouth when I spotted something strange in the distance.
“Are you all ri… Mmph!”
“It’s dangerous if you shout.”
…Although his face ended up a mess because I covered his mouth with a wing that had absorbed a great deal of water from the pouring rain.
Anyway, seeing Hanson below frantically draw an X with his hands, I also raised an arm and gestured that I understood.
“Ren?”
“Ptooey. What’s with you all of a sudden?”
“Look over there.”
I pointed with a wing toward the far end of the quarry, opposite where we were standing.
The large hollow in the cliff made it look as though the broken boulders had fallen from there and trapped Hanson.
And through the gap in the collapsed cliff, I could see a huge crack and a stream of flowing water.
“…If it weren’t for those rocks, he would’ve been swept away already.”
As Huey had said, without those rocks blocking the channel and trapping Hanson, it wouldn’t have been surprising if the torrent had swept him away long ago.
The problem was that the water pooled behind the rocks was gradually reaching its limit.
“What should we do?”
“Getting down is easy, but getting back up is the problem.”
As Huey had said, it wouldn’t be easy to climb back up the rocks with the water already overflowing.
…I guess it can’t be helped.
“I’ll go.”
Seeing Carol, Irene, and the other villagers running over from behind us, I said.
“With the strength in my legs, I can jump up that far in one go.”
The nearest safe area was about ten meters from Hanson’s position.
It would be a little risky to jump up while carrying someone,
but I was more suited to it than Huey or Lucy.
“Will you be all right?”
After taking a deep breath, I answered Huey, who was looking at me worriedly.
“Don’t worry. Just provide support if anything happens.”
“…All right.”
“Please don’t overdo it.”
Then I threw off my rain gear and began jumping down toward the bottom.
“Hup.”
After jumping down three or four times, the rain grew even heavier.
“Miss Ren! It’s dangerous!”
“Never mind that—are you hurt?”
When I approached and asked Hanson, who was shouting at me to stay away,
he shook his head with a flustered expression.
Good. So he wasn’t hurt.
Then I could afford to be a little rough.
“Move!”
After my final jump toward the spot where Hanson had been standing,
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Ah, yes….”
I checked whether he was really uninjured.
“I’m going up there now, so hold on tight to me from behind.”
“…What?”
“There’s no time to answer questions, so hurry!”
Perhaps the water was finally reaching its limit.
Water began bursting violently through the gaps between the rocks, so I shouted a little roughly.
“E-excuse me.”
“It might hurt a little, but bear with it!”
After shouting at Hanson, who was wrapping his arms around my neck, to hold on tight if he didn’t want to die,
I took a deep breath.
“Phew… Here I go!”
The moment I kicked off the ground with all my strength, I realized it.
‘Ah, crap.’
I had put too much force into the final leap,
and these damn claws had finally dug into the ground.
As a result, my body began slowly falling with about a meter still left before the safe area.
“Ren!!”
“Ren! It’s dangerous!”
From above, I could slowly feel Huey and Lucy rushing toward me, their movements beginning to look sluggish.
As though everything might come to a stop just like this.
-It would be easier just to accept it. Me too. You too.
In a world that soon came to a complete stop, I heard a woman’s voice.
-I’m helping you this once because it’s your first time.
It was a voice I had never heard before, yet for some reason it felt familiar.
-Remember this well. This is how you do it.
Then the presence of the voice, which had said only what it wanted to say, disappeared.
Immediately afterward.
In time, which began flowing again,
Click―
went.
I felt something that had been out of alignment inside me click into place.
It felt like a gear that had been stopped was beginning to turn again…
* *
“Ren!!”
“Ren! It’s dangerous!”
Seeing Ren fall again while leaping with Hanson on their back,
Huey and Luciela hurriedly jumped down toward Ren.
‘If only it weren’t raining…!’
Since all the sorcery Huey could use was related to lightning, using it carelessly risked electrocuting Ren and Hanson.
While Huey grumbled, fiddling with the bundle of talismans in his arms,
“I’m jumping down!”
“Lucy!”
It was just as Luciela, who had arrived below first, was about to jump down to save Ren.
-Whoooosh….
“…Are you watching? Your successor has spread their wings splendidly.”
Then Caroline stood at the entrance to the quarry, looking down and clasping her wings together as though in prayer.
“Great Ancestor. May you rest in peace.”
-Fwoooosh!
Immediately afterward, red flames burst up from the bottom of the quarry.
Flames so enormous they instantly vaporized the pouring rain.
“Whoah!?”
“Master!! Move back!!”
Luciela, who had been preparing to jump down, hurriedly held her coffin in front of her to block the flames, but
she couldn’t stop the flames as they burst out in a swirling vortex; she could do no more than shield herself from them head-on.
“It’s all right. That fire doesn’t burn living things.”
Caroline muttered as she watched the two of them.
Just as she said, even though the flames swept over them, not even a trace of soot remained on Huey and Luciela’s bodies.
“…Huh?”
“It’s… warm…?”
And then.
-Flap.
Along with the sound of huge wingbeats, the doll shot into the air at high speed.
“…Hey, old man! Don’t pass out! Hey―!!”
Ren soared into the air with flames rippling around their wings, shouting at Hanson, who had passed out and was starting to slide off Ren’s back.
“Whoa! That was close.”
Catching Hanson with a foot as he finally let go and began to fall, Ren flapped their wings once more.
“Huey! Lucy! Catch this old man!”
“Ren’s… flying….”
“Ren! Are you all right!?”
Lucy stared blankly at Ren, while Huey asked worriedly.
“I’m fine for now.”
After handing Hanson over to Huey and landing on the ground, Ren looked all around at their own wings, still rippling with flames, as though the sight was unbelievable even to Ren.
-Whoooosh.
Soon, the flames gradually died down along with the rain pouring down once more.
Then, as they sighed in relief, the three smiled at one another.
* *
“…What am I, seriously?”
I don’t remember ever hearing of a bird beastkin who could even breathe fire.
“You’re still doing that?”
“You’re going to put a hole in your wing.”
There had been a few problems and all,
but anyway, after saving Hanson, we had returned to Carol’s general store and were spending time drying our wet bodies.
“Phew, you’ve all been through a lot.”
“Ah, Ms. Carol.”
Carol, who had asked us to wait a moment while she went to check on Hanson, returned.
“They said he’s completely unharmed. It’s all thanks to you, little one.”
“More importantly, there’s something I want to ask.”
As soon as Carol came in and shook the rain from her wet wings, I decided to ask what I had been curious about since earlier.
“…Do bird beastkin normally breathe fire, too?”
“Oh, of course not.”
Carol smiled brightly as though telling me not to be ridiculous.
“I told you. You’re a much more amazing person than you think, little one.”
Apparently, what she had told me two days ago hadn’t simply been about our race.
“You see, our kind existed in this world even before the beastkin race was born.”
“Huh?”
“Well, these days, no one remembers the past, so they mistake us for one kind of beastkin.”
She added that, among the remaining members of her kind, she was probably the only one who still remembered.
“The true name of our kind is― harpy.”
Caroline opened her mouth with an expression of relief, as though she had finally unburdened herself.
“Harpy….”
“And you, little one, are an especially special existence even among them.”
“But I was human?”
“Yes. Even so.”
Even if I returned to being human,
that fact would not change.
“This is as much as I’m permitted to tell you. You’ll have to find out the rest for yourself.”
With those words, Caroline brought the conversation to an end.
“Ugh… Somehow, this has only gotten more complicated.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, isn’t it better than having no information at all?”
So, when the villagers told us to wait a while before leaving because they had a gift for us,
we lay sprawled across the table and exchanged words like that.
“Well, Lucy’s right. Since I can fly now as a bonus, I should think of it as a good thing.”
At the time, all I did was rejoice over the simple fact that I could fly now.
I never thought at all about what would happen afterward.
…About what kind of future the gears that had begun turning would bring.
…About what kind of future the gears that had begun turning would bring.