＜Infinite Dendrogram＞

□ Torne Village/Windmill Hut

How long has it been since Louis escaped into this windmill cabin?

Looked at on the clock, maybe to the extent that I haven't had a single long needle yet.

But in Louis' physical sense, I felt like I'd been here for hours.

Look only at the stone floors and walls, all you hear is laughter over the sky.

Whether it's just a coincidence, or whether the variation due to [monochrome] has some effect on the surrounding environment, even the wind blowing into the village of Torne has stopped.

So I can't even hear the windmill spinning when I say it's in the windmill cabin.

…………

But inadvertently, the laughter from above stopped.

That voice laughing 'KYAHAHA' stopped sounding.

"What happened to the monster in the sky?," Lewis wonders.

Did someone exorcise you, or did you fly away somewhere else?

Either way, there was nothing left to make a sound around Lewis... and Lewis was to sit back in silent silence.

In silence, I just hear the sound of my beating.

"... kind of like that time"

To that silence, Louis remembered one day… the morning when Sijima was gone.

◇

That day, Louis somehow woke up before dawn.

It was also the first time for Louis that the village chicken woke up earlier than it sounded.

Nobody would be awake yet. Before dawn, without a nocturnal bird or even a bug ringing...... it was wrapped in silence as if everything in the world were asleep.

In one of the beds with two in the children's room, Louis slept, and in the other, Yuno slept. Yuno sleeps with Suyasuya without realizing what happened to Lewis.

Outside the children's room window, Gringham is putting that big body to sleep on the house grounds.

Just a view from outside that window. On a hilltop that was only slightly exuberant by the house, there was a figure Lewis knew well - a figure of Sizima.

Sijima stood alone on the hill, looking at the village of Torne before dawn.

…………

Lewis wondered why, walking quietly not to wake up Yuno or the mother in the next room sleeping in the bed, leaving the house.

When Lewis left the house, Gringham said, "What's wrong?" But I wake my neck quietly with my eyes open like I said.

"Don't worry, sleep," Lewis told him in a gesture, walking to the tall hill where Sijima was nestled.

Lewis, climbing the hill, speaks to Sijima.

"Father-in-law, what's wrong?

"... Oh, Louie. You're up early. Good morning."

Sijima looked just a little surprised before greeting Louis in the morning. Louis also returns a "good morning" greeting.

"So, what happened early this morning?

"... no, I thought I'd take a look at the village landscape"

"It's been over two years since I've lived here, because I never even had a slow view like this. Thought I'd burn it in my eyes while the pleasant wind blows through this village."

That's what Sijima says, overlooking the village, but the sky before dawn was still dark, and even looking at the landscape, Louis had a lot of hard parts to see the details.

"Can't you see? Shouldn't we see it in the morning?

"Ha, I'm good at night, so it's okay"

That's what Sijima says, let me point my eyes at her.

"As a cavalry, I sometimes ran through the night forest with Gringham. That was just when I tried to get lost in the Noz Forest."

"Did that happen, too?

"Yep. I fought with a bunch of < masters > as well as me then, but my opponents were very strong. You looked just goblin, but you're faster and stronger than Gringham. If you lose sight of it further, it strikes you in another way, like a wolf or a bat. We struggled very hard, but managed to surround < UBM > and ended up with you, Mr. Moonshadow... someone I know was knocking us down."

"Heh!"

Sijima's telling memorabilia was a digest but also an episode in which the child tempered his chest, and Louis was very intrigued.

"Hey! That's what else happened!?"

"Yes, I do. Well, there's talk about this, for example. It's been since I married Farica, but what a crusade for that [Tripolar Dragon] when my people call me after a long time"

"Yea!

That's how Sijima and Louis kept talking.

Sijima tells memorabilia, Lewis is surprised, his eyes shine and he hears it.

Such parent-child conversations were continued until the sun rose into the sky.

"... oh, did the sun rise"

Just after telling a certain memorable story, Sijima seemed to dazzle the rising sun from the eastern sky...... or watched it sparingly.

"Father-in-law? What's the matter with you?

Louis asked if he thought of anything about such a father's condition.

Sijima looks at Lewis' face, thinks of something, and tries to spin the words.

"Louie. I..."

Sijima tried to say something there... shut her mouth.

"Father-in-law?

"... Louie. Me and Yuno, Gringham will only be away for a little while."

"Are you going to fight < UBM > again?

Dragging on earlier memorabilia, Louis asked.

Sijima shook her head at it while

"No, but... it's more of an adventure."

"It is! Good luck!

At that time, Louis just thought it was purely "awesome".

I was relieved to hear you were going on an adventure.

Sijima is immortal.

No matter what happens, he'll be back soon, he said.

In fact, Sijima had died several times during Sijima's told memorabilia.

So even then, Louis wasn't worried.

It's just...

"... yeah, I'll do my best"

Sijima's smile that makes her feel weak somewhere, even though she's laughing;

…………

"GLUWOO"

I saw Gringham with Yuno on him coming up the hill and somehow... I felt uncomfortable.

Nothing's wrong.

Sijima, Yuno and Gringham have survived so many adventures in one group, so if you're going on another adventure, it's only natural to get out of all of them.

At that time Louis felt uneasy about them going on an adventure for some reason.

So I grabbed Sijima's clothes sleeve and looked up and said:

"You're coming back, aren't you!?"

I don't even know why Louis himself asked me that way.

However, driven by unspeakable anxiety, he said so.

Sijima, questioned, after nearly breaking her expression just a little...... smiled and stroked Louie's head.

And with a voice that's desperately suppressing it to be a trembling tear, Sijima said:

"Oh, we must be... coming back to this house. To you and Farica... must."

Lewis also found that the voice of Sijima contained strong thoughts.

"Yeah...... ok"

So Louis let go of Sijima's sleeve.

Instead, send out a sizima in one word.

"Here you go, stepfather"

"I'm coming"

Nothing, a common word.

Words for families going out somewhere.

That was Louie's memorable, last word I had with Sizima......

◇

At this time now, the windmill hut surrounded by silence is as if it were before the dawn of that day.

It's dark without the light of day shining, and I can't hear anything.

But Louis thinks.

I wasn't this careful that morning, he said.

I'm sure that's because it was with my family.

Lewis did that and said he was lost in thought......

"Somebody, anybody. - I'm here to help."

From the outside, I heard people.

"Hey, anybody, you're not here. Come out if you're here."

It was someone's voice searching for survivors.

He's got his voice up, like he's calling around.

"It's okay now - the monster flew away somewhere - now, somewhere safe, run away -"

To that voice, Louis appeased.

I stopped hearing that laugh because the monster on the sky was still gone, he said.

"Good...... Yes, if the monster is gone, I need to get to my mother right away."

Louie wanted to reassure her mother that she would still be worried about herself, rejoicing that her own life had been saved.

"I'm sure you'll be fine because my Ray brothers are helping me..."

Louis had no doubt that his mother was on the run.

Because I thought there was Ray, Nemesis, and Beasley beside me.

The three of you who took on the search for my father-in-law and reached out to Louis, who nobody took. Besides, he also tried to solve problems on the road to the village of Torne.

For Louis, the three of them were the next heroes of Sijima.

"Hey, anybody, you're not here. Come out if you're here."

"Ah, yes! Stay here!

Louis responded to a voice outside looking for an evacuee and left the windmill shed.

◆

Louis didn't realize.

I'm stopping laughing - that the sky still remains dark.

◇

"Huh?"

Outside the windmill cabin, Louis was puzzled.

Outside, I thought there was someone looking for an evacuee.

But... there was no one there.

There is no shadow, the sky is dark, and the voice searching for evacuees,

"Somebody - Somebody - Somebody - Mi...... Ts...... Ke...... Ta...... ♪... KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

That voice calling people had turned into the same laughter they had heard from above (...).

Laughter of [Black Sky Dead Monochrome].

Its voice, conveyed across the distance between heaven and earth and the difference in velocity, has no attack capability whatsoever and does not protect itself.

But it's not just a skill to mock.

Three hundred years ago, I acquired it to lure and burn people trapped in houses and hole barns...... it was a (...) skill (...) to fish for humans.

"Ah..."

Louis witnessed a hotline pouring down from the clouds on himself.

That's how Louie felt the shock and heat, smelling the meat and blood she could bake.

To be continued