Chapter 235: Repeated
After coming to his senses, Adol tried to open his flickering eyes properly in the darkness.
After several attempts, he managed to return his hazy vision to clarity, but he could not go outside right away.
Because Adol was far too embarrassed that he had shown such an ugly state in front of Naria twice already.
As if noticing Adol’s embarrassment, a kind voice fell from above his head.
“Hey, if you’re done crying, come out already. I’m scared you’ll get snot on it.”
At those deeply considerate words, Adol quietly removed the blanket.
The darkness cleared, and the sun, which had risen high before he knew it, struck his retinas.
After blinking a few times with eyes that were probably swollen red, a face filled his vision.
Adol almost screamed.
Because a huge Werewolf was looking down at him as if it would devour him at any moment.
Fortunately, before his vocal cords could play their role first, Adol’s head and eyes recognized Naria.
“......So this is what you originally look like.”
When Adol muttered, only then did Naria seem to remember what she looked like and moved away from Adol.
Then she returned to the familiar, human-like form and helped Adol up.
Adol felt strange.
Because that calm behavior somehow felt like consideration, and he felt sorry for a moment.
“......It’s not because I was scared.”
When he belatedly added an excuse, Naria shrugged.
“I know. You’re not scared, you’re angry. When your eyes flip, it seems like you can’t control it.”
At her answer, as if she already knew everything, he did not snap back that she should stop acting like she knew.
He was not that shameless, and most of all, Naria’s words were not entirely wrong.
There was no way Naria had failed to notice that the moment he saw her face after she transformed into a monster, he had unconsciously sent her a wary look.
An awkward silence lingered for a while, but it did not last long.
Perhaps out of consideration for Adol, who was watching her reaction, Naria opened the conversation first.
“There’s no point chasing after them now. You’d just be baggage anyway.”
Though this time too, Naria’s consideration was subtly misaligned, like a brick with a dented corner.
Surprisingly, Adol’s pride was not hurt, nor did he get angry.
Because there was nothing wrong in her words.
Rather, he felt more grateful to her for running so hard to catch him.
“I know that too. Jing and Ria are moving while avoiding Renin’s eyes, so I shouldn’t chase after them recklessly. Earlier, I wasn’t trying to leave the village.”
After saying it, Adol felt as if he had lied for some reason, so he sighed and chose his words again.
“What I mean is...... I honestly don’t know either. Whether I was trying to chase after Jing and Ria, or what. Like you said, when I can’t control my emotions, I turn into something like you, but then I can’t see anything. So I don’t really remember while I’m changing either.”
Thanks to that, I don’t remember Amy’s last moment either.
Adol swallowed the bitter and pitiful words that followed and rose.
“Let’s go back now. We said we’d watch over the villagers. Until Jing and Ria reach the village, we need to keep the promise.”
If they succeeded in their original plan, the people would come to their senses a little too.
Then he would be able to meet Archie again.
“Hey, are you all right?”
Perhaps Adol, who suddenly seemed to regain his energy, looked extremely unnatural, because Naria asked with an uneasy face.
“What's not to be all right about? Two things became certain. That Mona’s words aren’t something to trust, and that Archie saved Amy’s life and mine at least once.”
Adol recalled Archie’s cold eyes directed at him, but he deliberately shook his head and pushed them out of his mind.
“Amy came out alive instead of dying in the Temple. Does that make sense? She wouldn’t have been able to escape alone. Right? She came out alive and gave birth to me, and they say Archie didn’t eat Amy but saved her.”
It would be too sad if the reason was because she had value to use.
Swallowing the anxious words that followed, Adol looked at Naria.
“She definitely received help.”
Even while speaking with certainty, Naria watched Adol’s reaction.
She probably wanted to say that Archie must have helped, but was holding it back.
Adol could not blame Naria.
Because he too could not crush the hope that had stubbornly begun growing in one corner of his heart.
The hope that perhaps Amy’s life had not been that horrible, and that he was not a child Amy had been forced to bear, but a child born out of affection.
Adol turned his gaze in the direction where Jing and Ria had disappeared.
Where had those two reached by now?
They had said they had no intention of fighting the Werewolves, so they probably would not kill Archie.
Then a chance to face Archie again would come.
When that happened, he did not intend to get scared in advance, nor did he intend to fall for Mona’s words and lose his reason again.
To do that, first, he needed to fix the habit of changing however he pleased whenever his emotions grew intense like now.
Besides, standing beside him now was an excellent example who could perfectly go back and forth between human and Werewolf form.
As they started walking back toward the plank house, Adol quietly opened his mouth.
“But when you change from human back into a Werewolf, what do you think about? If you decide something like, ‘I should change like this,’ do you go back?”
“Huh? I don’t really think about anything.”
At the disappointing answer that was exactly as much as he had expected, Adol pouted.
“......I did think you probably wouldn’t think much.”
At his disappointed voice, Naria shrugged.
“You don’t specifically learn how to blink.”
That was true.
For Naria, going back and forth between Werewolf and human was that easy, and for some reason, Adol felt deflated.
Naria glanced sideways at Adol’s disappointed face and sighed.
“I can’t explain it well in words, but like this...... I do think I’m picturing my own form.”
Naria flailed her hands in the air as if shaping something.
“At that moment, I focus only on my appearance, not anything else. No, it’s a little weird to say I focus, and it just happens on its own......”
As expected, it was not much help.
But Adol did not dislike Naria’s effort to help him somehow.
The way she kneaded the air as if kneading something was also a little funny.
“They say if you cry and then laugh, a monster will take you away.”
At Naria’s remark, Adol realized that the corners of his mouth had risen slightly.
“What are you talking about when you’re a monster yourself?”
As Adol lowered the corners of his mouth again and muttered sulkily, Naria giggled and wrapped Adol’s face in the blanket again.
“Yeah, so if you don’t want a monster to take you away like this, don’t cry and then laugh.”
“Ah, let go of this!”
Adol snatched the blanket from Naria’s hand and slowly stopped moving.
“The thing about a monster taking you away if you cry and then laugh, did Alec teach you that?”
When Adol asked as if whispering, Naria nodded.
“Right. For a while after being brought to the village, he cried a lot. He wouldn’t eat either.”
Of course he did.
He had suddenly fallen among monsters and begun a life where he did not know when he might be eaten, so he must have cried out of fear alone.
Thinking about it, I was the strange one for falling asleep in there as if nothing were wrong.
Adol realized anew just how careless his action had been, following the insane human’s advice that he could sleep with his legs stretched out.
While he resolved that if such a situation happened again, he would never fall for that bastard’s words, Naria’s voice continued as if she were lost in memories.
“He kept bawling every night, so I got really annoyed and forced him up to throw him outside. I was going to throw him outside. I meant if he was going to cry, he should cry it all out outside and then come back in, but Alec must have thought I was trying to eat him, because he made such a fuss. Then his nails grazed my face. When my face bled, I got angry too and threw Alec.”
“......You do like Alec, right?”
When Adol asked worriedly, Naria snorted.
“Of course. The fight didn’t last long in the first place.”
When Adol stared at Naria as if asking how that could be, Naria subtly avoided his gaze.
“......The next night, I lay down thinking that if he cried again that day too, I’d knock him out quietly for good. But he lay there quietly, then got up.”
“Was he trying to run away?”
When Adol muttered, Naria shook her head.
“He touched my cheek. I guess he was bothered that he’d scratched it with his nails. The wound had healed that very day.”
Adol looked for a moment at Naria, who was recalling the past with an excited face, then soon turned his head.
It was a story that was trivial if one called it trivial, and common if one called it common.
If the two had not been a monster and a human, there would have been nothing special about that occasion.
Adol felt strange again.
As if the difference in race between the two felt like a trivial problem.
“......Were Mom and Archie close like you and Alec?”
Adol, who had muttered without realizing it, immediately regretted it.
Because of the embarrassment of revealing his weak side at an unexpected moment.
“How would I know that?”
Naria answered as if it was nothing, which instead made Adol, who had overreacted, even more embarrassed.
Naria, who had no way of knowing Adol’s feelings, scratched her chin as if thinking about something and added more.
“Still, Archie probably didn’t kill Amy.”
“How do you know that?”
When Adol answered sulkily, Naria narrowed her eyes.
“Hey, what do you think is the most important thing to us?”
At the sudden question and answer session, Adol furrowed his brow but obediently opened his mouth.
“I don’t know. Life?”
“Right, life. To us, surviving is the most important thing. Because we know that if we just keep our lives, the next chance will come.”
“That’s wrong. Even if I survive alone, there are things that I have next time.”
Adol, whose face hardened as he thought of Amy, answered.
“Right. The dead do not return.”
Naria, who accepted it as if she understood that much, continued speaking.
“But that only applies when the other party has value.”
When Adol furrowed his eyebrows, unable to understand Naria, Naria sighed and pointed far toward the plank house.
“For example, if someone hiding over there dies, I won’t really feel anything. I’ll just think one of the ‘humans’ died. It wouldn’t be much different no matter which other human died. At most, I’d decide I should watch the next human well so they don’t die. But if Alec dies, then like you said, there’s no next time for me. Because to me, Alec is the only one in the world.”
Adol thought that Naria did not have much talent for explaining, while also feeling that he vaguely understood her words.
“Archie saved Amy and came out while being chased by the Imperial Family, right? That means his life was in danger. If there had been something that could replace Amy, Archie would have abandoned Amy right away. Because if he survived, he could just find the next Amy whenever he wanted. To conclude, Amy was an irreplaceable person to Archie.”
Having drawn a clear conclusion, Naria looked at Adol as if asking what he thought of her logic.
Adol could not think of anything in particular to refute.
No, to be more honest, he did not want to refute it.
Because the simple and clear conclusion she had drawn made Adol’s heart feel much lighter.
“What with tricking that man earlier too, it feels like you suddenly got smarter. It doesn’t suit you.”
In the end, Adol acknowledged Naria’s opinion by conveying his praise in a roundabout way.
“You’re looking down on people again. I’m simple, not stupid.”
Naria lightly rapped Adol on the head, not painfully.
“Humans are originally supposed to tremble whenever betrayal of god gets mentioned. As if I’ve only seen that once or twice. But how is it that even with half human blood mixed in you, you understand humans less than I do?”
“Shut up.”
Adol found himself a little ridiculous, being told by a monster farthest from humans that he did not understand humans.
When Adol laughed softly, the corners of Naria’s mouth rose freely too.
“When the lunatic and that bastard’s companions finish their work, think carefully about what you’re going to ask Archie. Don’t run off in anger this time too.”
Naria, who had dismissed Ran, Jing, and Ria as the lunatic and his companions, advised him.
“If I could do that as I pleased, I wouldn’t have asked you something like how to transform into a Werewolf.”
“Ah, that was you asking how to change earlier? If you’d said so sooner, I’d have taught you with a little more sincerity.”
At her belated realization, Naria went a little ahead of Adol and quickly changed her form.
“Look, this is how you do it. Got it? It’s a very brief moment, but I think I pictured how I looked just now. You saw it clearly, right?”
Naria, who had changed form in an instant, pressed Adol as if asking whether he had looked inside her head.
“How am I supposed to see what happens inside your head?”
Thanks to that, Adol asked back in disbelief.
“Ah, trying to explain this in words is hard.”
When Naria muttered with her fur-covered face, Adol, dumbfounded, burst into a hollow laugh.
The thought occurred to him that she might tease him again about crying and then laughing, but it felt like that would be fine too.
The sun, which had risen high before he knew it, warmed the cold air and stroked his head, and on such a warm day, it felt like he could lightly let Naria’s teasing pass.
It might not be bad to take after her a little, since she never knew how to take everything seriously.
For some reason, groundless hope that everything would go well filled Adol’s steps with strength as he followed Naria.
It was that moment when everything felt peaceful.
Whooosh---THUD!
The sound of cutting through the wind, followed by the chilling sound of something sharp and heavy piercing flesh, shattered Adol’s peace.
Adol stopped walking without grasping what had happened.
His head failed to accept the situation only briefly, and then Adol stood stupidly and caught Naria’s body as it slowly collapsed on top of him.
“......Naria?”
His terribly trembling voice called Naria, but no answer returned.
Adol’s shaking hand wandered around the fletching of the huge arrow that had pierced Naria’s shoulder.
Adol lowered his gaze to the familiar fletching and shaft, and then the wound beneath them.
Blood began seeping around the wound he could not bring himself to touch.
“Na, Naria, come to your senses.”
But this time too, no answer returned.
Instead, the voice of an uninvited guest the child had never called rang out not far away.
“Look at this. A monster can even disguise itself as a human.”
At the voice filled with pleasure, Adol raised his head.
On top of a fierce-looking horse, a man was laughing as pale blond hair fluttered.
The bow in his hand showed that the one who had just attacked Naria was none other than him.
Adol could tell that he was one of those the people had always called gods.
Also, ridiculously, at a glance, Adol understood why people believed him to be a god.
His facial features, hard to believe belonged to a human, also played a part, but what made him look most mystical was his golden hair after all.
His pale blond hair, swaying in the wind, glittered in the light.
But the moment Adol met the eyes filled with malice, he could only feel despair.
Because far from salvation, it felt as if he would drown to death in the slaughter and desire contained within them.
His heart was beating too fast.
His eardrums, unable to endure the blood flow, sent a warning sound with a pii—, but Adol could not even properly recognize it.
It was the moment Adol’s breathing began to grow uncontrollably rough.
Something blocked Adol’s vision.
One beat late, Adol realized that Naria had wrapped his face together with the blanket again this time.
Pressing down with strength on the child struggling to escape, Naria whispered.
“Breathe. Don’t lose your mind. Right now, there’s no one to help you.”
As if it was difficult for her to put any more strength into her body, Naria’s words broke here and there.
Adol stopped trying to break free from Naria’s arms as she hugged him, blanket and all.
“You remember what I said, right? Don’t forget who you are.”
With those words as the last, Naria’s hand swept once over Adol’s shoulder, then fell down like a puppet with its strings cut.
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