It will be a few days after the night of the funeral.
Alan and Wern embarked on a journey towards the 'Land of Yama', which seems to be at the eastern end of the continent, to separate Zordif's legacy from the merchants' travel expenses. The will was firm, and I wasn't lost since I decided to leave.
Pack your luggage only for one travel bag. Expect to walk long and buy new footwear.
It takes three days and three nights to leave the Empoos country, taking advantage of a boarding carriage that regularly transports between the city and the city. Until then, we hurried, but after we stayed away from the war, we wouldn't have to do that either.
On foot travel was the basis for a relaxing eastward along the streets.
Play wild boarding at the end of the street. Get me on the carriage of a wagon with a street to float the cost of transportation. An exhilarating and sophisticated lodging place to stay discourages me from falling short of expectations. Alan walks silently on his back carrying Vern, who can no longer walk into the pain of a shoe rub - the two of them went through a lot on the trip.
Even if the journey is long, it is not a journey driven by time.
It's not like I have a big mission to why I should go. I just want a place where the two of us can live in peace, and I can travel with hope that maybe it's there, and now that's all that's good.
So I heard some interesting rumors on the trip, and if I could afford the nostalgia, I also stopped by.
Taking you away from the front line, the world you see in front of you also changes. More land is unexplored, and time is lost to feel the livelihood of people. They become more pronounced after crossing the main federal country, the State of Westeria.
Surrounded by a long, idle air free of the smell of war, it seems somewhat easier to live in than in the city, if only to live and defend oneself.
Just to see how that went, Yama's expectations of the country grew naturally.
The day was one that made me feel the arrival of spring.
A grassy area with soft breezes to the east, illuminated by sunshine in the sun. The gentle grass gradient that spreads on one side is laid with streets long enough for the end to disappear to the horizon.
"There were people in that country, in that country, in places we didn't know, living lives we didn't know... I never thought about it. I thought you knew everything just what was in front of you. I'm kind of ashamed of myself when I think about it."
"I didn't feel particularly like someone else"
With the chase wind on his side, Alan and Vern walked down the street. In a tight pace, Alan had his travel bag in his hands, and Vern was walking forward with his bare hands.
I wave to see if I can get you on a carriage that sometimes takes a street, but this day has been barely done twice already.
It's a road to be transported by carriage in the first place, and you wouldn't have been tired if you hadn't bothered to walk and try to have a flair, and if you had honestly used a ride carriage.
"What I was mindful of the way it looked. I know better because it's about me... Mostly because this is your fault, right? You shouldn't have come before me with those eyes."
"What kind of logic?
"When my mother died, it was only my father and I who were sad. The relatives who were coming to the funeral looked light. When I thought about what the difference would be, I realized that everyone didn't know their mother well.... It was creepy to pretend I was grieving. And then I got scared of getting involved with someone."
"What does that have to do with anything?
"Oh, I haven't stained anything yet. This boy's heart is white - that's what I felt. There was also a bit of loneliness. I'm scared because I don't know who they are. So I wanted someone who knew everything. I wanted to make you what you wanted."
"Was I what you thought I was?
"At first it seemed like I was talking to a hand mirror that would give me a convenient reply. I just see my nature, it's like I'm not responding, but it changed a little bit. You seem a little human these days."
"You weren't very conscious."
"So the truth is, the first time you said you liked me was a lie, too?
"Was?
"Mmm... you asked me back because you know what I mean?
"... then not now?
"Oh no, I won't tell you"
From Alan, who changed a little after the day, Wern turned to him like a prank.
After many words, the two get to know each other in a real way. And after a journey spanning two months, he drew near the distance of his heart, and reached the end of the east, which is the land of the end.
- A Yama country was a rare small country that did not depend on photonstones.
It is not very similar in other countries, such as how wooden bungalow houses regularly connect.
Iron and copper conditioning products were popular here, mainly in wood products, in addition to the abundance of gold harvesting and the development of fine working techniques. Then there is the impression that one of the landscapes has been very distracted, a beautiful country rich in nature.
The land was just comparatively small and not as well known as 10,000 people knew.
It is under the umbrella of the Union, but it is treated like a half-independent country because of the specificities of the region furthest from the front lines of war and the culture that weighs its own way of life and format.
People from this country are often sent out requisition orders to the government and driven out to sites involved in weapons manufacture, as they tend to be clever.
Visiting the capital at the height of spring, Alan and Vern experience the life with their skin.
"Wonderland... from building to outfit, from what to how different"
"Is this where I come from?
On the midday boulevard bustling with people in kimonos, the two put their arms together as normal.
Half was a habit when walking in the crowd, the other half was to distract the finesse of stepping into exotic lands. It seems that exotic people are rare, and if they dress differently, they are different from the skeleton.
It also has a constant sense of being directed at strange eyes.
It was like water and oil, and I could still float and think wherever I was.
"Is that a shoe? I think I have to take it off in the building. There is a window with blank paper on the wooden frame. There may be doors that can be opened by shifting to the side, and the stitching is unique.... Let's remember as soon as possible"
When Vern carefully observed how people lived, he remembered one by one as he put it in his mouth. I take a crush from what is good and bad in this country, what is actually there.
"That's what you're looking at, isn't it?
"I'm used to it."
"Come early, why are you so elbowed?
"I'm going to live here, just to get used to it sooner? It's just hard for us to blend into such a different culture, even if we've lived in a foreign country, and at least we need to come closer to us."
"Are you going to live here?... Haven't heard a word of it?
Wrinkles lean between Alan's brows. Wern shut up when he saw that.
She was taken aback by the fact that she had spent four years together and could only remember a few times, surprised by the change in his expression - rather than by the fact that it was the kind of expression she could receive by mistake.
Then, by the way, I'm driven by the urge to see a different look as well.
"What, why are you suddenly silent?
"Hey...... just for a second, why don't you just laugh a little bit Nico?
"Even if they tell me to laugh, that's something I should be forced to..."
Stopping in the middle of the boulevard, Vern pinched both of Alan's cheeks. I messed around with those soft cheeks any way I wanted, assuming my hands were blocked with my travel bag.
"Closer eyes, see, raise your mouth like this... smile is important. They won't tell me if I don't tell them who I am. I can't laugh when I want to know and meet people."
"Ha fu and more?
"... that's fine. They're all cheating. They're alive."
I stare into Alan's eyes and ask myself there and tilt my neck. Doing so, Vern was thrown by someone on the side of the road. It sounded like the tone you deserved to teach people in an old, squeaky voice.
"Ladies. It's fine to be close, but it's not something that stops long on the move. If you're still going to go on, at least come here and say goodbye."
Turning there, I overlapped my gaze with an old man who I thought was quite a long life.
It has characteristics that are likely to be strongly impressed by memory, such as short hairline hair with retracted hairline, eyebrows as thick as fingers, gentle eyes with several wrinkles, and bliss ears that can be seen as heavy and dripping.
He has a cane on him, but his body in his kimono looks solid and still feels strong on his ankle.
Wern, obsessed with Alan's expression, finally realized it.
We avoid ourselves stopping while the people on the side of the road seem cramped. Some people have a blatantly unpleasant look, but the majority of them pass by all the time.
Nevertheless, the fact that we were in the way of passers-by was more obvious than seeing fire.
"Oh,... I'm sorry. It was inadvertent."
Wern, who took Alan's arm, hurried to move the place to the old man's side.
"Ho ho. These are the times to admonish yourself. Are the ladies travelers? The people of this country have a wide nostalgia. But be careful, if you are sweet enough, you will be lazy enough to admonish yourself."
"Thank you. I'll be careful from now on.... Um, can I ask you one thing?
Vern thinks it's time to meet an old man who looks good.
"Oh well. I wonder what it is?
"Looking for a tree-lined path with thin red flowers, in this country, in this city?
The old man, who seemed to have a crush on him, nodded with certainty several times.
"I guess what the lady is saying is about the Sacramento tree. Then it's in this city, so I'll tell you where it is. It'll be crowded just in time, but, well, if you just look at it, is it okay?"
"Something hard to get to?
"No, I'm not. I'll find out when I get there. I'll get you a paper and a brush at a store I know nearby, and I'll draw you a map right away. Wait a minute...... yes, what did you two say?
An old man who tried to walk out somewhere stops and asks for his name.
"Huh?... Oh, I'm Vern. This kid here is Alan."
Though confused not to expect to be asked his name, Vern immediately answered lovingly. I glanced at Alan, who remained silent next door, where I also summed up his introduction.
"To Vern,... you're Alan. That's a very good name."
It's about half an hour since I met a friendly old man.
Relying on a briefly drawn map, Alan and Wern continued their exploration of the capital. It wasn't that far away, and it didn't take that long to get there.
Eventually, the two of them, who saw the sight that was spreading there, inadvertently took a breath.
Sakura trees blossoming in thin red flowers, long lined along the river.
Every time a breeze blows, sparkling petals colour a space that should have no color, and petals that have already fallen to the ground still adorn the round trip without compromising the bright colors. The sweet scent that allows us to stand in there brings peace by gently stimulating the nostrils.
Not only that, but by the Sacramento tree, there are countless people living in a bustling state.
Sitting on the ground laying large The way it is doesn't make you feel as if you are still in war.
"Beautiful place. I wonder how the people of this city seem to enjoy it."
Alan, who is in love with the view in front of him, glances at it, and Vern says, "Was it here?" and turn to her voice.
Waiting to see the same thing as him again until the word returns.
"I don't know.... but"
Slightly late Alan opened his mouth.
"But?"
"I want to live here. Both of us."
- Like, for the first time, it's certainly required.
"... yeah"
It's six months too early to start living in Yama country.
Renting a room in a long house with low wages, Vern and Alan lived without being frightened by anything.
I don't have a lot of savings, and I don't have any other belongings besides changing clothes and daily groceries.
A murderous room with just one small round table also feels cramped to live alone. I needed money to buy all the furniture there, and I still couldn't afford it. I couldn't say such luxury or anything.
Fortunately, the capital of Yama had a lot of work to do.
"Well, I guess I can go home at night."
"Mine will be over in the evening. Then I'll go check on you later."
Wern serves in a certain tavern. A billboard daughter who has earned a reputation for male customers and contributes greatly to earnings for several months after being bought and hired for her previous instrumentation.
It was only at first that the shopkeeper was worried about the business in which the man's counterpart was at the centre, but he was treasured after showing the drunken man how not to be frightened.
Sometimes I drove back a man who had said something in a transverse manner, saying a word "don't touch me" awesome. She didn't realize, but the shopkeepers and other customers who watched the whole thing were in shade.
"Oh, I'm so glad you're always so worried"
"... Then I'll come back and take care of you. Because if you're late, it's bad for Mr. Yagen."
Breaking up with Alan in front of his home, Vern headed to the tavern.
Neighbors are remembered for their faces early as exotic people, and for the courtesy and affection they have shown at the outset, they have developed a generally good relationship.
While I was passing by, I often got greetings from facial acquaintances, items for hemming, and so much to gain.
It's just that we hang out wide and shallow, and we never let them have our hearts.
"Hello, I'll take care of you today"
"Are you here? It always helps. I'm counting on you today."
It was originally a liquor store - in the small earthbound area where the floors were just arranged in the store and in the store, Vern works from after noon until sunset.
In the meantime, he carries liquor in customer service or cooks in the kitchen in the back, occasionally adding liquor that is mixed with a circle of guests.
It was decided to try to get drunk, but Vern didn't get drunk even if he had a lump. After lightening that purse and the return of such a lowly customer, it was promised that he and the shopkeeper would whine "no problem".
Together, the strength and drunkenness of liquor are for each person.
If you don't get drunk no matter how much you drink, some people are sober, and some people get drunk and reason flies.
"Hey, uncle, no! Not enough booze. Oh, I'm bringing every barrel, ooh!
One customer, drunk by the snake, bangs on his knees and urges.
She was a woman in her late twenties, appropriately wrapped up with long, plum-colored hair.
He wears a thin kimono loose and opens his big crotch like a man to expose his raw feet. It has a very feminine physical appearance and stands as if to emphasize it, but it doesn't seem quite unfortunate there.
He was a regular customer who had recently been able to do so and always had a deep drink in him before he came to the store.
"Oops, Mary back today moans. Hey, you can see the fungus."
I said, "Taco! Because she's a woman, she's drunk, she opens her crotch, what's wrong!
Other regular people make fun of me and yell at me, but I can't feel the seriousness of the woman's words.
"Ooh, she's as good a woman as ever. That's why I went to another country to marry her and she gave me all her love. No, I didn't, did I? There's no such thing as a man getting a woman like you to be his daughter-in-law anymore, huh?
"That's right, I'm the woman back home. Come on! If you have a complaint, hold it. Whoa!
"Ha, but that's the only one who's giving up. Vern, it's your account."
Regular people, who expected to be badly entangled, go home after completing their shittiness and payment. When the shopkeeper is alone, the woman lies on the floor with a face that looks terribly boring.
He growls, "He's always gone." He starts to get some sleep.
The shopkeeper sighed loudly, not having had much experience sleeping in the store.
"This guy's gone, has he fallen asleep? There's still a store."
"... where is this guy's house?
Looking at the woman, Vern asked the troubled face shopkeeper.
"It's not that far away, but what's wrong?
"I'm already up today, so I'll send you home"
Wern carried a drunken woman and walked in the capital on a dazzling night as did the moonlight.
"... hey, heavy guy. It's a good idea to have a good face. Alan will be worried about me when I'm late, and I need to hurry as much as I can.................. hehe. I wonder what I'm talking about."
Within half an hour of sunset, the popularity is lost, and the state of the boulevard comes idle.
There are few opportunities to be different from someone along the way, and I just claimed the weight of a woman with a cute trick, and I don't run into anyone who reaches out to me for salvation. Rather, it is the end of weariness after finishing in prison.
Above it took, I thought behind my back of my brain of someone I loved, and there was nothing else I could do but rely on the power of paranoia.
"Eh, just turn right at the corner of 3rd..."
"Straight from there to the left"
The chasing voice arrived from my back. A woman woke up.
"Oh, are you awake? Now get off."
"I'm not awake. Sleep another night."
"No, if you can't do it for a second. Walk yourself."
Vern pulled off the woman clinging to her back forcefully.
"Hey, no. No, I don't want to walk myself. No. If you don't mind, I'll sleep here. If it's the consolation of the evil man on the street, I'll bite your tongue while I curse you."
A woman falling asleep on the ground starts wasting her time.
"Damn, this guy..."
I was also worried that you would really leave me alone with that too bad of a liquor habit of a woman who wouldn't try to move that way. Still, at the end, Wern lent his shoulders to the shabby woman.
"Wow, we're going to another house today!
"Say your bedtime words after you go to sleep. Come on, oh, no! If you would just walk straight."
"You're a big fan. Is that serious? Are you in shape or..."
"... because we'll be there soon"
Drawing a dangerous woman in her footsteps, Vern reached the house.
She got hard when she arrived.
Because I have lived in such a house, I realized at a glance at its appearance that it was a human house that made blacksmithing a business. Now he also noticed the characteristics of the woman's hand, such as burn marks and finger thickness.
"You... you were a blacksmith"
"Heh, isn't that a good idea? Were you one of those people?
Without answering, Vern took the woman to her mother's house.
There is a dirt room with a kitchen set up immediately, a staircase taller and a tatami living room. Others are between break-ins and so on, and overall, they are not spacious. The empty liquor bottle was scattered and there was no foot treadmill.
On the other hand, a corner of the room was neatly decorated with forged gains.
It's not just sloppy, is it a chiggly impression?
"Please also sit in the living room. I'll get you some water, I'll touch the kitchen, right?
Clean up the top of the tatami and let it sit.
In an attempt to remind the woman of her drunkenness, she drew drinking water from the water using what was in the kitchen. Even so, Vern's gaze turned toward the score.
No matter how much you look at it, you still don't recognize its shape.
A slender, loosely curved, single-edged sword hung on a bunk table, a sheath of what I think is dedicated to it.
He has a very sharp blade tip compared to what I think is a common long sword, and even if he just touches it, he looks like he's going to cut it. And so is the sheath to hold it, as if it were a quest for artistic value without one distortion.
The more I saw it, the brittle it looked, the more beautiful it felt, the strange sword it was.
"I brought it.... Are you still going to drink?
If you try to draw water back, the woman's hand is gripped by a drinking bottle.
"When I hit the wind at night, I got drunk... by the way, you seem to care, but you took a serious look at one of my beaten pride dishes, and it was everything I thought?
Feeling her gaze from the woman, she walks over to the calf table.
I'm feeling beautiful about this. Still, this is...
With his sword in his hand, Vern stared at that sharp blade and compassionate.
"With something like this, there's someone like you who makes it so the war won't end"
If you noticed, she was answering to run her mouth.
"... I'm not a child. Don't throw up the dialogue you tend to dream about. The liquor will taste bad."
"Don't treat me like a child, it'll be fifteen this year"
If I objected to that, the woman erupted.
He slaps his knee, holds his belly, and laughs loudly in terrible pleasure.
"- Ha, ha, ha... you say you're an adult when you're old? Oh, my God, you're just a bunch of people."
"Then how can I be an adult?
Wern, who got upset, thought he couldn't answer, heard.
"Did you think you'd shut up?... I call him an adult who can live according to the good things and the bad things in that world. Deny that you like things in the world, inside. Then what's with the unacceptable guy, not the kid?
"... what is that? That's crazy."
"Something's wrong. Bad guys dyeing their hands at evil and scorning people gain, and serious guys trying to grow up lose money. It's just that both of them will have better sexuality than kids who don't have anything to do with themselves without either of them forever. If you're doing kids on purpose, you suck."
"Do I have to admit how to die like that? I can't do that."
My father's last crosses the back of his brain, Vern glances at the woman and sues her.
"I know what happened to you... be a villain if you want to change the world to your liking. If you don't feel that way, just think of the world and grow up. If you can't do both, keep complaining all the time ahead and just eat and die as a child. That's the world now."
Until then, with a rugged look, the words are angry, and the woman adds her advice.
"And besides,... don't underestimate the blacksmith business with assumptions. We're gonna strangle you?"
Vern, still unconvinced, will remain staring at such a woman.
"... I don't like it at all. Drowning in booze like this. Come on, sprinkle it without even knowing people's minds. Come on, what do you look great... you're a kid too..."
That's what I said. It changes the way the woman looks. Sad for his rugged face, he held his knee in his arms and became smaller, drooling disappointingly. I cry at the rate of total loss of momentum and tell the story of myself weakly.
Wern asked in confusion but silence.
"I had a husband. When I met him, I was twenty-two, my husband was fifteen, he was younger and just a little unreliable, but he was a good guy who got me this kind of delay. That would have been nice if we had been together.... conscripted such a young man, driven out to a battlefield he couldn't win, and never came back"
With tearful eyes, the woman continues with her eyes on the sword.
"The only thing that returned was a knife that was broken in half, brought back by my husband's buddy. The knife I gave him didn't protect him. I'm not coming back to work anymore... you're right. These things are just killing tools."
Turning his consciousness to the knife in his hand, Vern recalled the existence of the dagger in his memory.
- Use this to protect you.
It was an interesting half, but the other half seriously thought so as a child.
Only once now does Vern ask himself. Do you really think it's just about killing people, is the idea really unshakeable, was the father's job really just that...
The answer didn't come right away.
She hadn't faced the existence of that dagger yet enough to get it out.
Then the woman wept and fell asleep, after that.
Wern, who ran through the night lane and returned to his home, told him when he found Alan in the kitchen. I try to change my current state of mind, which has something blown out, into words anyway, without even getting my broken breath ready.
"... what are you panicking about?
To Alan tilting her neck, she cut out like this.
"Alan! You know, it's me... I'm gonna grow up"