Suteko Ni Narimashita Chapter 4
A Mother’s Grace
After deciding to look for a human village, I started moving.
While practicing magic, I almost came into contact with humans on several occasions. During those times, I would either hide under the shade of the trees, inside a bush or in the ground where I dug a hole.
Those humans seemed to be hunters. I sometimes see them catching birds. And then, they would head east into the darkening forest either empty-handed or with their catch of the day.
Their village is in the east. And so, I headed east as soon as the sun had set.
My safety on the road was not a problem. I didn’t need a road since I used magic to fly, and although the sun was already setting, I didn’t have any problems with visibility. I’ve also made myself invisible.
I took two breaks during my journey: one for resting and one for sleeping. After I took my fourth meal while on the move, I finally came upon the place where the trees parted and I could see the lights coming from the people’s houses. But first, I’ll stay here and wait for dawn.
I woke up to the sun’s rays hitting my face. It seems the sun has already risen.
I checked my surroundings as I yawned loudly. There were tree stumps and trees whose branches had been cut off. It was clear that this part of the woods has been touched by human hands. And beyond that, I could already see some people behind the low fence of the village. I knew I was invisible, but I was still nervous.
“―――♪”
First, there was a middle-aged woman. She seemed to be in a good mood and was fetching water while humming to herself. She was probably preparing for breakfast. She washed her hands in another water container and wiped them on her slightly dirty apron. Then she went back into the house.
When I looked closely, I saw that some people were already working in the field-like plots. So they had already started working around sunrise.
There were also houses with livestock. Some of the animals looked like cows but were somehow different, and there were pigs too. This seemed to be a small farming village. The scenery of houses made of wood and stone looked somewhat like a marginal village* in Japan.
However, there are children here. There was a boy, maybe five years old or so, who was trying his best to carry a bundle of grass. The large grass bundle seemed taller than him, but his attempt at trying to carry the bundle over his shoulders was hilarious. It was not so easy for him though, and he looked desperate while sweating.
I looked around for a while, but all the buildings looked the same, and all of the people seemed to be devoted to tending to their fields and livestock.
Then I looked around for a house that met my requirements.
As I roamed around, I observed that everyone seemed to be having breakfast at his time. So I stopped what I was doing and decided to enter the houses.
So I thought I should follow a random farmer. With that in mind, I spotted a farmer walking in front of me with a small child in tow.
I slipped in as they entered the house. The door was simple and made of wood and was the type that locked from the inside.
The spread on their table was nothing fancy. They had some sort of wheat meal that looked like couscous, some soup with cabbage, a small piece of bread, and a thick white liquid that looked like yogurt.
The family three, that was the parents and their son, were sitting at the table and were laughing at something. I wonder if they were deciding their agenda for the day. Or were they just joking around?
The leftovers from their meal weren’t very extravagant either. Though, if it were in my previous world, it might have been so. However, those leftovers looked delicious to me now, and it was a feast that I could not have.
Feeling a little gloomy, I resume my walk around the village.
I looked down suddenly. There were a lot of green tree roots that made bumps on the ground, and it looked like it had been stepped on recently. I wondered where these tree roots came from. I looked around, but there were no large trees nearby.
I heard a baby crying, so I reflexively looked in that direction.
A small baby was crying in the arms of a woman who still looked like a young girl. The baby, who had chestnut brown hair, kept crying despite the woman who was trying to soothe it, wondering what it wanted.
A newborn baby… looks like I just found a place that meets my conditions. I inwardly made a fist pump at my find.
My condition for a perfect place was simple. And it was a household with a newborn baby. That’s all.
If there was a child, then they would have supplies for it. They would have everything they need to help their child grow. And it’s not just food and clothes. The education, discipline, and knowledge of a language that a child must have is something that I’ve wanted more than anything right now.
So, I will stay close to this child for a while. I will watch over this child. The parents of this child will also be my parents.
I snuck into the baby’s house. The squirming infant was tucked into a small blanket and was put to sleep. Its sleeping face was very cute and was completely different from its crying face earlier.
After the mother kissed the sleeping child’s cheek, she quietly walked out of the room. I wonder if she was going to do some chores.
The inside of the room had simple furnishings. There was a bed for the baby to sleep on, a small desk that has not been used yet, and a rocking chair for the parents.
I peeked through the slightly open door and looked at the other rooms. The house itself seemed to be rather large. Unlike the house I saw during breakfast, this one had a child’s room, a room that looked like a workshop, a medicine storage room, and a small room that looked like a study.
The mother seems to have finished doing laundry. When she went back to the room, she looked at the sleeping baby, smiled, sat down, and started knitting. This continued for several hours until the man who seemed to be the father returned.
When you get used to spending time with someone, you learn a lot of things about them.
For starters, the baby seems to be called “Frau”. Both mother and father frequently used that word to call the baby. Of course, the word could also mean “cute,” or “are you okay?”, but I had a feeling that was its name.
I don’t remember seeing other babies, but I think Frau is a quiet child. He doesn’t cry much even when he’s in a room that has nobody in it except for me, and he spends most of his time looking at the walls and ceiling. And when he looks around, he sometimes smiles and cackles at the people in front of him. His face looks like he’s enjoying himself, and I like seeing that smile.
After a few months passed, his behavior changed, and he started to do dangerous things. As soon as he could hold his head up and crawl, he would start wandering around by himself.
Most of the time, he would go looking for his mother who was either doing the laundry or preparing meals, but there are also times when he would attempt to go outside. Sometimes he would try to go outside, but I thought it was too dangerous and interrupted him every time, but it seemed to be a futile act before the curiosity of a child. There was no sign of stopping him.
Frau’s mother reading to him was very useful. I think I listened more intently than Frau did to learn about their language and culture, and thanks to that, I could understand most of the words by the time 3 years had passed.
Frau seemed to like epic tales about heroes. Stories, where the hero and his friends go on a journey to defeat the evil demon king and save people along the way, seemed to be his favorite, and he would often ask his mother to read those to him.
“To get into the next town, the Heroes had to pass through a forest. There, a young girl came up to them and said, ‘Oh, I don’t know who you are, but please give me some food. I haven’t eaten for a while, so I’m hungry and thirsty.’ The hero felt sorry for her and gave her the bread from his pouch and turned to leave.”
“An’ the girl grabbed his hand and thanked him a lot.”
“Oh my, you’ve already memorized it, haven’t you?”
The mother chuckled and praised her son. Then, following her son’s words, she continued reading.
The story was simple. An Evil Demon Lord appears in the world. After its appearance, the monsters become more active, and the country falls into turmoil. And then one day, a Hero receives an order from the King to go on a journey with the Princess to vanquish monsters. On the way, they make friends with a Witch who lives in a deep forest, a Martial Artist who is proud of his strength, and a Priestess who was also traveling for the sake of the world, and they go around defeating the Demon Lord’s men and then defeat him. Then the Hero and the Princess get married and live happily ever after.
“A soldier with an arrogant look on his face points his spear at the hero, saying, “I will not let you pass through!”
“You can do it, hero!”
The story continued. The girl that the Hero gave his bread to turned out to be the Priestess, and she came to accompany him in his journey. When they reach the next town, they are interrupted by a Soldier of the General who was envious of the Hero by finding fault with him. However, with the Hero’s persuasion, the Soldier changes his mind and starts to protect the Hero from the mean General.
“When the hero said, ‘my sword is meant to protect the people, not for fighting you,’ the Soldier was moved to tears and dropped his spear. The Princess was so happy that she bit the Hero’s neck and kissed his cheek.”
“Wah, wah!”
In case you were wondering, there were scenes where the Hero receives kisses and hugs from the women, and Frau is always red-faced and embarrassed. The scene was very funny, and his mother watched him with a smile.
The Hero’s journey was long. In this world, there are places called “The Five Holy Lands”, and numerous countries are scattered around it. The Hero travels through these countries, accumulates strength, gathers allies, and defeats the Demon Lord.
This story was based on a real-life Hero who existed thousands of years ago. Perhaps with time, the countries’ names were different now, but the Holy Lands were still there.
In fact, the forest where I was abandoned and am still getting food from is also part of the sacred territory called Nergu, even though it is located at the edge of the territory.
I hadn’t noticed it when I first came to this village, but there was a large tree standing at the back of the forest, although it’s not something you can just describe as “big”. Even looking up from the village, which is quite a distance away, the tree is so tall that the upper part of the tree is hazy, and the diameter of the trunk is probably kilometers-wide. The tree and the land around it where the roots spread out beyond the horizon is called Nergu.
Nergu is a fertile land. It is lush with plants and the beasts that eat them. And where there are beasts, so are the monsters that eat them. Fortunately, most of the demons and beasts stay quiet in the depths of the forest. It seems the closer to the tree trunk, the more fruits there are, and the lesser worries there are about food.
Humans also live at the edge of the Nergu territory. The harvest from the edge of the forest and the agricultural products are enough to live on. However, when it comes to my food, I still rely on hunting and gathering.
“The Hero stood up using his broken sword to support him and said, “I still have to protect the people, I cannot die here…” …Oh my, looks like he’s already fallen asleep.”
Frau had fallen asleep on his stomach like how he does during afternoon naps. Though he seemed heavy, his mother picked him up, brought him to bed, and left the room after stroking his cheek.
Now that Frau was asleep, I had no business here either. And so I floated up and flew out.
I suddenly looked towards the forest of Nergu. There was a small fire that was a common occurrence around these parts. I once heard from the adults that it was either caused by ignitions caused by fire-spitting monsters or that a sea of lava from the distant, but still neighboring, Holy Domain of Elif had traveled through the earth to get here. I don’t know which is true, but fires like these never grow into massive wildfires as it is extinguished after a while by a kind of sap coming out of the roots of the tree of Nergu.
Once, I went to the place right after the fire was extinguished. It was covered with a rather viscous and slightly foul-smelling liquid. But even though the liquid smelled bad, it tasted rather edible.
In one corner of the village, a dozen or so residents were training for battle. The training area was small and seemed to consist mainly of physical exercises such as running and pretending to handle a long stick like a spear.
The incidents are few and in between, but beasts sometimes come out of the forest, and Guards are placed on patrol at the edge of the settlement to drive them away. This was a training session for the Guards.
It wasn’t very motivating, but the shouts from the training echoed in the area. Most of them were peasants, and they didn’t have much when it came to physical strength, but it was plenty enough.
The reason why everyone participates in this training even though it isn’t necessary is that the participants get something out of it.
And that is alcohol.
The guards change every three days, but those who are going to the next shift are required to train for three days. And at the end of the shifts and training, the participants are served alcohol.
The alcohol is brought by a merchant caravan every nine days, and the money bought with it is collected from the village residents.
The alcohol they get from it isn’t much, but it is very precious for a place with scarcely any entertainment that even those who are not on guard duty sometimes participate in the training. I don’t get why they would go as far as that though.
I may not get alcohol, but I also participate in the training from the sides. My body has already grown to be as big as a three-year-old’s. Of course, I still can’t do things as easily as the adults, but I can at least swing a stick around and run. I don’t want to stay weak and only rely on my Magic. Perhaps it was because I was using magic to compensate for my eyesight, but at the moment my sight is still not that good. When I realized this, I’ve tried to keep quiet and invisible as much as I could and not rely on magic unless I had to.
And then, something interesting happened recently.
Among the unmotivated adults, there was a very motivated boy who often participated. His name was Kisch. Of course, there were also motivated youths who trained, but there was something different about Kisch.
One day during training, there was a rare mock battle session. There, I saw Kisch facing off with a middle-aged man. As is my habit, I used my Magic to look at him, and to my surprise, he looked back at me. It wasn’t mere coincidence. I knew he was suspicious about my presence.
Was he able to detect Magic? If so, did that make him a Magician? Ass I thought of these things, I observed him for a while, but it didn’t seem like he was one.
Also, that was the only time he responded to my probing with Magic.
I don’t know what caused it. Did I fail to hide with Magic? Or did Kisch merely detect my presence for some reason?
I couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard I thought. That’s why I’ve been trying to observe Kisch during training.
Kisch wasn’t around today, so I mindlessly swung the stick around. I didn’t stop even when I was out of breath and my arms became tired and I was sweaty all over. I was determined to keep at it until the adults stopped.
I must have counted up to a hundred before we were done with the frontal swings. Next was the frontal thrust. There wasn’t much time to catch my breath. The break was only a few minutes, so the adults had enough time to chat, but I had not recovered yet.
The swinging resumed. It may have been because I was only using a stick with the branches removed instead of the polished spear the adults were using, but it was a particularly hard time for me with my weak skin. My left hand, which I used to hold the stick, hurt. The bleeding has been lesser these days, but it still hurts. This time, I had to stop after about 60 swings due to the bleeding.
I continued with the side strikes, the twist downs, and the bare swings. This exercise was making me bleed more, and I couldn’t get used to it much. This time too, I had to lie down and rest before I could finish my swings and run. I just couldn’t get my breath back.
The sky was so blue. Even though the cool breeze was drying my sweat, it was making me sweat all over again too.
It seems like I’m not very good with spears. Sometimes I try to use it to chase away the dogs in the forest, but it’s rarely useful. In the end, I would use a fireball or fly away or whenever it seemed like a good idea.
I healed my hand while I was resting. I used magic to cover my wound with a transparent membrane, kind of like artificial skin. If I resumed with the training right away, the membrane would tear and it would bleed again, but if I waited like this, it would heal by tomorrow. It was a healing spell that I discovered out of necessity.
After the break, the adults grudgingly started running. After this run, today’s training would be over, so with alcohol in mind, they ran with an uplifted mood. I followed suit. I wanted to quit because I was hurting all over, but I had to train my body. When I reached my limit, my legs got tangled and I fell over, eliciting a deep, deep sigh to come out of me.
Oh, I couldn’t get up.
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Translator’s Notes:
*Marginal Village – or Genkai shuuraku (限界集落) in Japanese, are depopulated villages on the verge of disappearing as half of their population is composed of people who are 65 years or older.
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