Chapter 1
When I was young.
I once played war.
It was a simple game: split into teams, choose a king, and win by taking out the other team’s king first.
The rules changed constantly in the name of making the game more fun, so I can’t remember them exactly.
During one of those games, I was surrounded by the enemy, surrendered, and was taken prisoner.
The rules for surrendering and taking prisoners were just as improvised. Some suggested building a prison and putting me inside, while others wanted to find rope and tie me up.
The problem was that I got scared when I was surrounded by kids from a neighborhood I didn’t know, tied up and pinned down as a prisoner.
I imagined for the first time that I might never make it back to my beloved family, and, embarrassingly, I ended up crying.
**
As the sun set and began to bathe the city buildings in red.
The hunter Tarmin saw that a large table, standing on its side, was blocking the door to his house.
He approached, dumbfounded.
“What?”
When he got closer, he saw Enya inside the doorway, struggling to somehow get a large square table out.
She must have somehow turned it on its side and gotten it to the door, only for it to get stuck in the narrow doorway.
A tiny thief in a long skirt was trying to steal the dining table.
Tarmin took the opportunity to cheer the thief on.
“That’s it. You’re doing great. Just a little more and you’ll get it out, right? Keep going.”
The thief’s movements made it hard to tell whether she was pushing the table or leaning against it to rest. When she noticed the homeowner had arrived, she simply smiled at him, without a trace of guilt.
“Hi, Taal.”
Tarmin sighed, then grabbed the corner of the table sticking out the door.
Then he pushed it back into the house.
Enya was helplessly shoved back and screamed.
“Ah! Wait!”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself as a thief?”
“I need the table! I need it!”
“Then go to a carpentry shop or something.”
“I need it, and I’ll pay you. Besides, this was ours to begin with! You’re so mean, seriously!”
Actually, it had belonged to Enya.
He stopped pushing and set the table squarely on its side.
Then he lifted it and pulled.
“Huh?”
Enya watched as the table slid smoothly through the doorway.
She realized Tarmin had been freeing the part that had gotten caught in the door.
“You don’t have to pay me. I’ve got something suitable in storage, so you can use that.”
Tarmin carried it straight over to Enya’s house. Enya followed behind, grinning.
“You’ve gotten kind of reliable, huh?”
“I’ve gotten older, too.”
“Have you?”
Enya and Tarmin were both adults now.
Though Enya looked like she’d gotten younger.
While Tarmin placed the table near the kitchen and went back home, Enya took out a candle and lit it.
Tarmin changed into his everyday clothes at home, then came back and sat in a rough, backless chair.
He took a bottle from the bag he’d brought and pulled out the cork. A sweet, fruity scent rose at once.
Enya immediately took an interest.
“What’s that?”
“Apple wine.”
“Alcohol?”
“Yeah. Let’s talk.”
What was he supposed to say to a friend who’d once been a legendary hero, but had now been reduced to the body of a girl who couldn’t even move a somewhat large table?
Tarmin had a somewhat unusual background, but being a hunter meant fighting nature more often than people.
Among the life lessons he’d learned from his hunter father, from people of good character he could call teachers, or from swindlers, there was nothing about “the right thing to say to a friend who came back as a woman.”
So he wanted to borrow the strength of alcohol.
That chilly look in Enya’s eyes, and her answer.
They belonged to someone carrying some kind of wound.
And Tarmin was still too awkward a man to ask about it while sober.
If anyone accused Tarmin of trying to get her drunk, he’d leap up and protest that it wasn’t true.
Enya was resistant not just to alcohol, but to every kind of poison.
Enya approached curiously and promptly set a glass in front of herself.
“You want some too?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t get drunk. What a waste.”
“Oh, come on! Let me just taste it.”
“This isn’t very sweet.”
“Pleeease.”
She looked up at him with moist eyes as she pleaded, and his heart softened.
In the end, he poured some for Enya.
Come to think of it, he’d never been able to beat Enya at anything, no matter the field.
Both in childhood and during their days of adventure, whenever Enya insisted on something, Tarmin was the one who went along with it.
Tarmin guessed Enya had been fooled by the fruity aroma.
Fruit wine wasn’t much sweeter than other kinds of alcohol.
That was because the sweetness disappeared during fermentation.
He and his childhood friend had set off to save the world before they knew things like that.
Their youthful, clumsy days of adventure.
How had the currents between them, already stirring even when Tarmin was there, flowed onward?
What had happened while he was gone?
Enya lifted the glass and downed it in one go.
As expected, she flinched hard, squeezed her eyes shut, and grimaced.
“Ahem, hem, cough, um. It’s, it’s not bad.”
Enya was pretending to be fine with tears in her eyes. She was breathing hard through her nose.
He grinned, amused by the sight.
“See?”
He confidently lifted his glass and downed it in one gulp. Then he made the same horrendous grimace.
It was sour.
So sour his eyes watered.
“Ugh! Hey, Enya, you—blegh… You should’ve told me it had gone bad.”
“Heehee, cough.”
Maybe the seal had failed somewhere. It had completely fermented into something like vinegar.
Only now did the sharp odor buried underneath rise up and fill the house.
As he corked the bottle and reached for another, Enya was still grinning triumphantly, even as the pungent smell overwhelmed her.
Her appearance had changed completely, except for her hair and eye color. She was shorter even when seated, couldn’t move a table by herself, and looked like a little girl of maybe fifteen—but Enya was still Enya.
At the sight of her, Tarmin couldn’t help laughing.
He felt like he could talk honestly with his childhood friend now.
**
It was a failure.
“Taaal….”
“I thought you didn’t get drunk?”
“I didn’t… before.”
Now that he thought about it, he should’ve realized that she’d lost more than just her strength, and that other things might’ve weakened too.
“I’m n-not, not drunk.”
“You chose to drink. I’m not responsible.”
“Oh. Understood.”
Enya even gave a salute-like gesture, who knew where she’d learned it.
Contrary to her words, her body was debating whether to topple forward or fall backward right then.
Tarmin was so busy keeping an eye on Enya that the alcohol’s effects passed him by; he shivered in the chill of the autumn night with his mind perfectly clear.
It was unfair.
At any rate, one of them was drunk, so he decided to try talking.
“If it’s your resistance to alcohol—or poison, rather—did you lose that thing, Nitcharov, was it?”
“Nitcharov, no, seriously….”
Perhaps her constantly swaying body was uncomfortable. Enya staggered to her feet.
Then she came over beside Tarmin and tried to turn him to the side.
Her hot breath, rich with the scent of apples, brushed past his ear.
When Tarmin obediently turned, she sat beside him and leaned against his back.
Perhaps the effects of the alcohol had eased a little, because Enya let out a contented sigh.
“Phew. I didn’t know, but this is nice. Getting drunk.”
“Yeah. The village has gained one promising drunkard.”
Enya giggled.
After a brief silence, Enya spoke.
“Evil is so powerful.”
The night air was cold.
Empty bottles decorated the table.
The roasted beans they’d brought as a snack were scattered about.
The candle, having burned down just enough, was giving off its best light now.
The dripping wax reminded him that time hadn’t stopped.
“Huh? What was that?”
“It’s a line from the Prophecy.”
Tarmin wondered if it was some kind of spell.
He wasn’t well-versed in magic, but there had been a renowned witch among their party.
When she chanted spells, he’d sometimes felt an uncanny sensation, as if the air around her was listening to her voice.
The words Enya had just spoken carried a power like a witch’s spell.
“What does it mean?”
“It means that defeating evil leaves behind aftereffects just as severe.”
Tarmin thought of Enya as she’d been when she was a hero.
“I see. So you getting drunk is the result of that aftermath? And… becoming a woman, too.”
Enya nodded.
“That’s right.”
“What about other problems? Your health, for example.”
“I’m not sick or anything… Are you worried about me?”
Enya playfully bumped her head against her friend’s back.
Her friend had always been the one dragged along, yet had followed her despite lacking any particular talent.
Whenever she asked him anything this directly, he’d get embarrassed and change the subject.
He was fun to tease.
“Of course I’m worried. There are some things you can joke about and some you can’t.”
But maybe time had helped him grow.
His honest answer made her catch her breath.
“…Yeah.”
She was about to thank him for his sincere concern,
“You crybaby.”
“What?”
“What’s a crybaby like Taal doing worrying about someone?”
And she ended up covering it over by dredging up a memory from the past.
Tarmin rubbed his eyes as though he had a headache.
Enya didn’t seem inclined to tell him what had happened.
“You’re still teasing me about that?”
“Hmph. I saw you bawling after those kids from the upper neighborhood surrounded you.”
“That was years ago. How long are you going to keep using that against me?”
“I’m going to tease you for the rest of your life.”
Tarmin stood up.
Enya, who’d been leaning against his back, got up too and tried to run away laughing, but the alcohol caught up with her legs.
She let out a yelp and sank to the floor.
Tarmin didn’t chase after Enya. He was cleaning up the drinking session.
“I’m glad I lived this long. I even got to see my friend take her first steps.”
“Taaal….”
“What, man? Want me to praise you? Get up.”
“Help me up.”
Even after Tarmin had finished cleaning up, Enya was still holding out her hand.
He sighed and took her outstretched hand, pulling her up.
Enya got to her feet easily and smiled sheepishly.
“Thank you.”
She simply thanked him a beat too late.