I Became a Regulatory Official for the Poaching of Monsters, but the Rescued Monsters are trying to Eat Me

I don't know how much I ran.

Anyway, we even ran through the wilderness.

Your barefoot feet hurt and bleed.

When I was completely out of breath, I couldn't hear the cannon anymore.

Stop your feet from either side and sit there like you're falling.

It was Karon who was breathing roughly on his shoulders, but his breathing calmed down after less.

The cold wind shakes hair and passes, cooling the sweat blown out.

(Am I... alive?)

I don't know where to run. I don't know what will happen from now on.

It just seems certain that I'm alive.

On the other hand, a feeling of guilt that you have survived again smokes your chest.

The children who had slept together until this morning were eaten one after another, so why are they still alive?

I wonder why they were eaten, not themselves.

As I kept asking myself such unanswered questions, a faint voice grabbed my ear.

Looking next to him, Criston, who was sitting perfectly on the ground, was hugging his chest and leaning.

The shoulders are shaking little by little. A little late, I realized that he was crying.

"... what's wrong?

Worried that it might hurt, Karon called out.

"Are you hurt?

However, Criston shook his neck wide, showing me a rag he was holding in his chest. Inside the rag was a salamander pit.

The pit, which was supposed to have been bright red, has now turned red and black, and does not move with a twitch.

"I stopped moving. Pit, I can't move anymore. It's getting colder and colder. It's warming up. More and more....."

Criston's eyes are full of tears.

"Why... pit. Don't go. No, you can't. Don't go. I'm going to be alone again...."

Criston wraps the pit in cloth again with care. I put it in my clothes to give my temperature and hugged it.

(Oh, I see....)

Pitt didn't run away like the other Beasts after the cage was destroyed.

He breathed in the cold air of Jiz, who was freezing his feet with Criston, and warmed them up.

Thanks to them, they were able to run away, but it would have been fatal for salamanders who needed high temperatures.

No more, the pit became black like ink and shattered to pieces.

Criston continues to cry with Pitt's remains forever.

Karon could only watch.

How long has it been since then?

Late at night the moon rises high.

I could no longer hear Criston crying.

Criston does not move with the pit wrapped in cloth. I didn't know how to speak up to him in an attempt to speak up, and hesitated many times.

It was these words that finally came out.

"... I'm sorry. You saved my life."

Perhaps Pitt would have survived this fatal wound if he had only helped one Clinton.

I'm terribly sorry that my dear friend in Clinston died trying to help me.

If I can give my life, I want to give my life to the pit. I'm sure Criston would be happy. This kind of feeling comes out with words like this.

"I'm sorry. I wish I had died."

For a while, Criston raised his face. Then I say, "Roar."

"Don't talk nonsense."

He was a lowly, unconvincing voice I had never heard of.

"After all, there's no point in me surviving. Pitt should be alive."

Criston grabbed Karon's breast, still saying that. Closer to his face, he glanced sharply.

"Stop talking nonsense, you're talking nonsense! You don't need meaning to live! The grass, the fish, the birds, the beasts, they're alive without meaning! Then humans are the same!? Just being alive is enough to make sense!?

As he screamed so much, Criston leaned down with a soft face and his hands off Karon.

"... so... Don't lose your pit feelings."

Karon had no choice but to nod.

"... I'm sorry..."

Then they walked on without saying a word and were protected by a settlement that had arrived around dawn.

Pitt's remains were buried in the forest near the settlement.

To avoid the cold, I chose a place where the sun was likely to hit and buried it.