Chapter 31

Translator: Willia

What did those who traveled alone keep as companions through the night? Was a sliver of moonlight and the whisper of the stars enough to soothe their loneliness? If that was enough, then what could soothe the weariness of a hard life?

At least Valery had Snow now. Snow was asleep on his side beside him, though.

Valery half-reclined against Snow’s belly and gazed into the campfire.

Night in a forest was naturally darker than elsewhere, making the campfire seem to burn all the brighter.

Crackle. Pop. Crackle......

For some reason, Valery kept thinking about the people of Belfort embracing one another and weeping. Their faces had looked as though they had lost everything in the world, yet in another sense, they had also looked as though they had achieved everything they could ever want.

Did extreme happiness resemble extreme sorrow? Where did such powerful emotions come from, and how were they born? He could not quite understand.

He thought of the people he had met along the way. Count Aethelred, Madam Sybil, Harold, Gidwin, Knut, Arne, and the others.

Would those people cry for him? If they thought he was dead and then he returned alive, that was. It might have been a childish thought, but that was precisely where Valery felt the sting of loneliness.

There was no one. There was no one in the world who would cry for him.

They might shed a few tears, but no one would cling to others and sob for him the way the people of Belfort had. Nor did he want to cling to someone and beg them to cry for him.

The thought of dying suddenly rose within Valery.

Still, one thing was better than before. He no longer wanted to go so far as to hurt others, sever this cursed bloodline, and then die.

He simply wanted to go somewhere no one else was, be forgotten by everyone, and then die without anyone knowing. Somewhere no one would ever find his corpse, leaving not even the slightest trace that he had ever existed in this world.

Perhaps the people around him had helped some of his wounds heal, but the hole that had existed in his heart from the very beginning had not been filled at all.

The campfire reflected in Valery’s pale sky-blue eyes, but his heart was pitch-black, without so much as a single star.

He closed his eyes. Better to close them. Better to sleep like the dead. Nothing could be better than never waking again.

Valery awoke to the feeling of something licking his face.

Birds were chirping in the forest, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the campfire had gone cold.

It was a bright morning. Golden sunlight split through the branches and pierced the ground in countless shafts, like ropes connecting heaven and earth.

If morning had reached even this deep into the forest, he must have slept quite late. Snow had apparently licked him awake because he showed no sign of getting up.

Still, it was strange that he had slept so late in such an uncomfortable place. No matter where he slept, he always woke at dawn.

He thought he had been a little careless, but another part of him wondered what difference it made.

The melancholy from the night before had also lost its strength, just like the extinguished campfire. Valery did not know who had first said that sleep was the best medicine, but whoever it was must have been a sage.

Valery sat up and drank some water first. He tipped his waterskin over his face and splashed on enough water to call it a wash, then made do with a quick meal. Smoked ham, dried fruit, grain flour soaked in honey and dried, and things of that sort.

He gave Snow plenty of dried barley stalks and bean stalks. After feeding him a few carrots for dessert, Valery checked his equipment.

He inspected the edge of his sword, wiped down the blade of his battle axe, tightened his belt once more, and fastened his cloak.

Lastly, he put Snow’s tack on but did not mount him. Instead, he walked east along the path through the forest.

Before long, he came to a fork in the road, where a stone marker stood.

<By order of the Duke of Eldeira, unauthorized persons are forbidden from taking the right-hand path.>

Seeing the marker, Valery realized that the path to the right must lead into the Rangers’ territory. Since he was a Marshal, he counted as authorized personnel. So he took the right-hand path.

The chirping of birds and the tapping of woodpeckers sounded from both near and far. Judging by how active the birds were, there did not seem to be any Monsters nearby, at least.

After perhaps an hour or two of walking, he heard a dog barking. Sure enough, it was barking because it had heard Valery’s footsteps.

Woof! Woof!

Soon, a cabin appeared among the trees. A stream flowed right beside it, and it seemed to be one of the Rangers’ shelters.

The dog was near the cabin and was not tied up. Yet since it did not charge at him, it was probably barking to alert its master.

Answering his faithful servant’s barking, the owner emerged from the cabin. Whether he had slept in or had been taking a nap, his hair stuck up in places, while his shaggy hair and beard made it difficult to guess his age.

The first thing to catch his eye was the enormous warhorse. Then came the tall youth leading it. A young man? A boy? He tilted his head, but then his gaze fell on the clasp of Valery’s cloak. A Marshal.

“Uh...... hello. Hey, you little rascal, I’m out here now. Stop barking.”

The man certainly seemed to be a Ranger, and at his master’s words, the dog really did stop barking.

Apparently feeling awkward after his simple greeting, the Ranger merely fidgeted with his hands and stood there.

“So...... what should I do? Would you like to come inside?”

Being a Ranger was a lonely profession. There were a few colleagues, but since they divided a vast region among themselves to manage, they only crossed paths occasionally.

In other words, they were not the sort of people who knew much about entertaining guests, observing proper courtesy toward their superiors, or dealing with people in general.

“Hmm. I’ll impose on you, then.”

“Huh? But aren’t you going to tie up your horse?”

“He’ll be fine.”

“If you say so......”

Before entering the cabin, Valery petted the dog. It seemed to like people by nature. It had been barking furiously moments ago, but now it was wagging its tail wildly, rolling onto its back to expose its belly, and making quite a fuss.

It also seemed rather excited by the sight of Snow, almost as if it had made a new friend.

From the fact that the dog seemed healthy both physically and temperamentally, Valery could reasonably infer that its owner was a decent person.

Once inside, the cabin smelled far less like a bachelor’s den than Valery had expected. Instead, it was filled with the scent of wood, layered with the pleasant fragrance of herbs. Various herbs were actually hanging from the ceiling to dry.

Several unstrung bows lay around the cabin, and the wood shavings scattered across the floor suggested that the Ranger made arrows whenever he had spare time. One container was filled with them.

There was also a fireplace, with a pot sitting over a low flame. Its contents were being kept pleasantly warm rather than brought to a bubbling boil.

“Sit wherever you like.”

The Ranger said this while apparently trying to put together a meal in his own way. He ladled some of what was in the pot into wooden bowls and brought out various other things, mostly food that could be gathered from the forest, such as pine nuts, wild raspberries, and mushrooms.

He crumbled a thoroughly dried herb between his fingers, sprinkled it into the bowl, and offered it to Valery.

“As you can see, this is how I live, so I can’t serve you anything fancy.”

Valery had eaten enough to stave off his hunger that morning, but he had not eaten his fill, so he accepted without hesitation and dug into the soup.

Truly, without exaggeration, it was the most delicious thing he had eaten since his regression. What in the world was this savory, salty flavor, the subtle aroma of meat spreading through it, and the fragrant scent of herbs?

He could not tell whether the chunks of meat were rabbit or venison, but there was meat, mushrooms, and all sorts of other ingredients, making it nutritious as well.

And when he picked up the wild raspberries one by one and ate them alongside the soup, the combination was incredible.

“This is the best meal I’ve ever had in my life.”

Valery meant every word. Only then did the Ranger smile faintly.

“Everything came straight from the forest. In the city, food has to travel, so it tends to spoil along the way, doesn’t it?”

Indeed, aside from those wealthy enough to eat well, most city dwellers were not in particularly good nutritional condition.

The Ranger served him another bowl and sat across from him at the table.

Now enjoying the soup at a more leisurely pace, Valery asked,

“How long have you lived here?”

“Well, I’m about twenty, twenty-one, so around that long, I suppose?”

“Is this work passed down through generations?”

“Haha, passed down? Nothing could be further from a Ranger’s life than starting a family. People just drift into it, get chosen by fate, or get abandoned and raised into it. Yes, I was the abandoned kind. Old Man Mills raised me. He taught me what I could eat and what I shouldn’t, how to hunt, how to make, maintain, and shoot bows, what to be wary of, when to retreat, and how to live with the changing seasons. Things like that. Has it been five or six years now? He’s dead.”

In one corner of the cabin, horizontal notches had been carved into a pillar at different heights. They appeared to be marks left from measuring a child’s height as he grew.

The notches stopped at one point. Perhaps that was around the time the man named Mills had died.

“An old man raising a child. Looking back, I don’t know how he managed it. Imagine a Ranger going around begging people for milk to feed a baby. I used to get so sick of him treating me like a child forever and worrying about everything......”

The Ranger gazed at the weakly burning fire, seeming to sink into old memories.

“Before we go any further, what is your name? I’m Wid.”

“Squirrel. A little big for a squirrel, aren’t I?”

“And I’m a weed, so I suppose we’re similar.” [TL Note: Wid's name is pronounced like the English word “weed”, which is the basis of the joke.]

“Are we? There are no weeds in a forest. That’s just how farmers think.”

It was a perspective Valery had never considered before. The name Wid, though it was not even his real name, had always made him a little uncomfortable. Yet hearing Squirrel say that seemed to make the feeling disappear.

“What exactly do you do?”

“Well, I suppose I’m something like a forester stationed far away from everyone else. You know, a gamekeeper. It’s similar to that, only a little more dangerous, although when I think about it, maybe it’s not all that dangerous either. I don’t know. I suppose I just keep an eye on how things are going. Did you know? People are afraid of wolves and hate them, but without wolves, Goblins would make their way into places where people live. We observe things like that. Whether the wolf population has increased or decreased, whether wandering Goblins have been sighted, whether anything has changed among the plants and animals, whether Wildlings have settled down somewhere, things like that. If there were another territory directly beside us, we’d also have to watch for suspicious movements from them, but as you know, no army can come through this forest. No one has ever gone all the way into its depths.”

“What about Witches?”

“Hahaha. If there were any, they would’ve married Rangers long ago and had ten children each.”

“Then have you heard anything about the carpenters of Thunder Forest? Isn’t the Carpenter Guild somewhere around here?”

“The Carpenter Guild? Ah...... I think it would be better if you didn’t bother those people......”

There were wandering communities of craftsmen in the world, such as the Blacksmith Guild and the Stonemason Guild. The Carpenter Guild was another.

Whereas Belfort was a settled community built around an outpost village, the craft guilds were communities that lived while moving from place to place. They took jobs, earned money, and supported themselves that way.

Squirrel watched Valery’s reaction before continuing.

“I only heard this from the old man myself. They say the carpenters of Thunder Forest were all fierce Vikings in the past. There were two great wars a long time ago, and apparently they were the ones who survived them. Maybe they backed another Prince and lost? Of course, I don’t know the details either. Anyway, the important thing is that they aren’t people to take lightly. As far as I know, even the Duke leaves them alone.”

“I appreciate the warning, but I wasn’t asking because I thought poorly of them or intended to pick a fight for no reason.”

“Hmm...... You seem like a good person, My Lord. You don’t strike me as the type to do anything bad for no reason. Still, it’s not as though I need to point them out to you. Once you get anywhere near Thunder Forest, you’ll see them easily enough. They don’t live in complete isolation.”

“Is that so? Then how far is Thunder Forest from here? No, rather, how much farther until I’m out of this forest?”

The forest Valery was currently traveling through lay along the border between Nordlanding and Krisher.

“If you keep up a good pace, you should reach Hemsley village before sunset.”

“Understood. And is there anything in particular making your life difficult or inconvenient?”

“Inconvenient? It’s always people. Nature never gives me trouble.”

“People?”

“Ah, well......”

“You can speak freely. I have some discretion myself, and I know what can be repeated and what should be kept to myself.”

“Oh, it’s nothing major. You know the Tax Collector? The Viscount’s Tax Collector.”

Dukes and Marquises who held multiple counties often appointed Viscounts to administer vacant lands. Strictly speaking, Viscount was not a hereditary title, but the authority it carried was equivalent to that of a Count.

Krisher was territory administered by a Viscount appointed by the Duke.

“What about the Tax Collector?”

“We Rangers normally don’t pay taxes or anything like that. But the Tax Collector who arrived recently suddenly started coming all the way out here and ordering us to bring him deer antlers, dig up truffles, and do all sorts of strange things. We’ve just ignored him so far, but every time he comes, he gets more aggressive about trying to intimidate us.”

The Rangers effectively answered directly to the Duke, so a Viscount’s Tax Collector had no authority to order them around.

But as was always the case wherever people lived, things did not necessarily go according to the rules.

Whether the man was simply that brazen or looked down on the Rangers because they lived in isolation, it seemed he had taken to harassing them.

“I talked it over with my fellows. If he pulls that bullshit one more time, we’re just going to kill him in the forest and pretend we know nothing about it.”

Squirrel might have seemed simple and good-natured, and he had treated Valery well, but Rangers were by no means people to be taken lightly.

“No. I’ll look into it, so hold off for now. I should get going before it gets too late. Thank you for the soup.”

“Take these with you. You might want something to snack on along the way.”

As Valery rose from his seat, Squirrel packed several small pouches for him. They contained powdered herbs, dried fruit, pine nuts, smoked meat, and similar things.

Valery accepted them gratefully and stepped outside the cabin. Somehow, Snow and the dog had already become fast friends and were standing pressed close together.

Valery mounted Snow to pick up the pace a little. Then he raised one hand slightly toward Squirrel. Squirrel lifted his hand as well, apparently wishing him a safe journey.

The man did not know much about manners, but he was not a bad sort.

Just as Valery traveled with Snow as his companion, Squirrel lived in the forest with a single dog for company.

Everyone seemed to have their own way of dealing with loneliness. Perhaps even a man with a pitch-black hole in his heart, where not a single star shone, could find his own way to keep living.

But Old Man Mills lived on in Squirrel’s heart. With the warmth of the campfire that was Mills’s affection, he seemed able to endure the cold called loneliness.

Valery was a little envious of that.