12 - Another Meiyu Village
A heads-up: this chapter gets a bit grotesque for some readers.
Heading for Waiyakku Valley, the black knights' party pressed on. Six black knights had visited Meiyu Village, but one remained at the junction of the village and the highway. He was apparently left as a lookout to make sure no travelers wandered into the village where a mysterious plague had spread. Nearly all of the portable food Leonardo and the others carried was entrusted to the one who stayed behind.
Following the highway, they reached the third village. There were apparently four more villages on the road to their destination, Waiyakku Valley.
...I wonder how much longer until we get there? On horseback, I can't really tell distance or speed.
My bottom was starting to hurt, I thought, and as I subtly shifted my position while riding, a strange sense of wrongness came over me.
"...A weird smell."
I pinched my nose over my mask without thinking and grimaced. Where was the smell coming from? As I turned my head to look, there was something off besides the smell.
"No one's here?"
Even though it was a village in the middle of the day, not a single person was in sight. In a normal village there would be children running around, the laughter of women doing laundry, but this village had none of that.
...Something is strange.
By the time I realized it, Leonardo and the others must have noticed the village was abnormal too. They dismounted and began to alertly survey the area.
"I'm getting down too."
I shook Leonardo's shoulder, telling him to let me off the horse. Leonardo immediately accepted my request and moved to lift me down, but in the end he didn't lower me from the horse. He must have decided it was better not to let me down. Though I felt like having my feet on the ground would be more reassuring than being on horseback with a higher vantage point than usual, I grew vaguely anxious. As if to suppress the indescribable unease in my heart, I furrowed my brows and turned my face away from Leonardo. Pretending to sulk, I looked at one house and saw a figure move beyond the window.
"...Leo-nyaldo-san, that house, someone's there!"
Forgetting my sulking act in an instant, I told Leonardo what I had just seen. Leonardo immediately turned the horse's nose toward the house where the figure had appeared.
Pulling the reins, Leonardo approached the house with the horse carrying me. The closer we got to the house, the stronger the strange odor became, and I narrowed my eyes without thinking. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it was the kind of smell that stung the eyes.
...What kind of smell is it? Sweet, yet heartburn-inducing, sour, nauseating?
At any rate, it was a complex smell. Various odors mixing together, ultimately transforming into a stench of rot. That's how it felt.
...The stench of rot?
I frowned at the word that surfaced in my mind. The strange odor hanging over the village resembled the smell of something rotting. The moment I realized that, the figure at the window scattered with a rustle. What had looked like a human figure was not a person's shadow at all, but a swarm of small black winged insects.
...Flies? Even so, isn't that far too many...?
It was winged insects that had scattered in surprise when Leonardo neared the window, but immediately they began to plaster themselves thickly over the window again.
Leonardo knocked on the window, blackened with winged insects, with a tap-tap. The insects burst away from the window again, and because I was on horseback, I could see inside.
"Leo, Leo-nyaldo-san..."
Unable to tear my eyes from the thing inside the window, I called Leonardo's name in a trembling voice. There was something in the room I didn't want to see, but I couldn't look away no matter what.
"What is it, Tina?"
Noticing my distress immediately, Leonardo moved away from the window. As soon as he did, the window was filled with winged insects again in an instant.
"Inside the room, someone's, dead. On the bed..."
The contents of my stomach rose to my throat, and I desperately fought back the nausea. I couldn't possibly vomit on horseback. Unable to take my eyes off what I had seen, I was lifted from the horse and cradled against Leonardo's chest. My field of vision was forcibly changed, and I felt a little better.
"On the bed, rotting. Black, and wriggling."
The scene I remembered as I explained made me squeeze my eyes shut. I thought blocking my vision might help me forget what I'd seen, but instead I remembered it even more vividly.
On the grimy sheets, a blackened mass of flesh. Bones visible here and there, the internal organs already rotted through, the flesh of the abdomen caved in, sunken. Countless tiny creatures clinging all over the body, constantly squirming. I can infer that flies laid eggs on the corpse, maggots hatched, and then grew into the massive swarm of flies that now blackened the window.
When I described what I had seen just as it was, Leonardo seemed to grasp what was happening in the village. He immediately gathered Alf and the others, gave instructions, and they began searching the houses.
To give only the conclusion, not a single villager was alive. There were many graves in the cemetery that appeared new, and inside the houses, only corpses remained, abandoned without even being buried. Apparently. "Apparently," because I only listened to the information Alf and the others gathered. Left with the cart and horses under the pretext of guarding the luggage, I didn't go around investigating the village like Alf and the others did.
...I'd only be in the way, after all.
Besides, the gruesome corpse I happened to see is not something I want to see over and over. As I desperately tried to push the sight, nauseating just to recall, from my mind, Alf spread out a map.
"Since the only remains we saw in Meiyu Village were Tina's father, we can't say for certain, but..."
"It could be the same disease."
"Yeah. There were bloodstains on the laundry left out to dry. As Tina said, they must have scratched themselves until they bled from the itching. As for the rest... every corpse was too far decomposed to examine in detail."
Measuring the distance between Meiyu Village and their current location, Leonardo's brow furrowed. If it were a droplet infection, the distance there was too far for it to spread.
"...We'll need to investigate the surrounding villages just in case. Alf, return to the fortress and take my place. Randoll, continue on to Waiyakku Valley as planned. Jean-Jacques and Teddy, meet up with Lorenz left at Meiyu Village and investigate the nearby villages."
"Sir!"
Once the orders were given, the knights moved quickly. To lighten the horses' loads, the remaining portable food, blankets, and other large items were loaded onto the cart. With the horses lightened, Alf and the others spurred their mounts and in no time had galloped off down the highway. As I stared at the now-empty road, Leonardo lifted me onto the horse.
"Tina, you're with me to Waiyakku Valley."
"Leo-nyaldo-san, the fortress, not going back, that okay?"
"With possible infection, I can't go back right away. It's fine. When it comes to work that requires thinking, Alf is more reliable than me."
Leonardo shrugged, saying Alf would quickly compile information and take the best course of action. I still didn't understand exactly what their relationship was, but it seemed they had a solid foundation of trust.
"I'll run the horse to the valley. Hold on tight so you don't fall, Tina."
"Yes."
Prompted, I gripped the protrusion at the center of the saddle. There was nothing else to hold onto, so this was probably the right place. As I thought that, Leonardo's arm wrapped firmly around my waist.
Once the horse ran, the scenery changed quickly. Even though it was early spring, the leaves on the trees had fallen in autumn and remained bleak. If I looked closely at the branch tips, new buds might have been swelling, but from the back of a running horse, there was no way to confirm that. Over mountains, through forests, pressing steadily down the highway, we veered off the road, which was maintained to some extent, and onto a side path. As the trees thinned, the forest became a grove, and a mountain of bare exposed rock came into view, the horse entered an even narrower path. Worried whether the cart could keep up, I looked back and found the path just barely wide enough. Though its speed had dropped somewhat, it was following properly. After proceeding for a while while keeping an eye behind us, the horse's pace slowed.
...Someone there?
Spotting a figure ahead, I strained my eyes to look forward. The tall figure seemed to be wearing black armor.
...A black knight? Why in a place like this...?
Puzzled as to why a black knight would be on such an untraveled path, I tilted my head. Leonardo, for his part, showed no particular surprise, as if he had known there was a black knight here. Slowing the horse to a light trot, then eventually to a walk, Leonardo stopped the horse before the black knight.
"...Commander Leonardo?! Why are you here..."
"I'll spare the details, but I'll be holing up in the valley for a while. Is the Wise Woman-dono in good health?"
"That person is as robust as ever. Just a little while ago, she was chasing a newcomer around with her staff."
While the brief exchange went on above my head, I looked around from within Leonardo's arms. A little ways off, I could see a small wooden hut.
...A watch hut? Does he sleep there and keep watch here?
But what's he watching for? As I was thinking, the black knight who had been talking with Leonardo lowered his gaze.
"...And this child? Don't tell me she's the Commander's secret child...!"
"A little sister, L-I-T-T-L-E S-I-S-T-E-R!"
"Huh... I never knew the Commander had a sister. Though I kind of feel like they don't really look alike...?"
To the black knight who, upon hearing "sister," peered in with a friendly smile, I responded with a smile of my own. A smile is the first step to building smooth human relationships. If he was being friendly, it was probably best to be friendly in return.
...I'd been thinking about it a bit, but Leonardo-san and I really do look like parent and child, huh.
Leonardo, who with his bangs swept up looked to be in his late twenties, and me, whose body is a little small for an eight-year-old. Saying we're siblings fits less well than saying we're parent and child. Or rather, the age gap is too wide for it to be plausible to call us siblings with a large age difference. Conveniently, our hair color is the same black, so we do look like we could be blood-related. Though the same could be said for parent and child.
"...Someone will come within a few days to bring our provisions. We're passing through."
"Sir!"
Pulling my head close as if to shield me from the black knight's gaze, Leonardo urged the horse forward. This black knight was probably a guard here, but it seemed we weren't going to be stopped or anything. Leonardo leisurely rode the horse past the black knight, who had moved to the side of the path and snapped into a crisp salute. As we passed, the black knight gave a small wave, so I waved back.
...Is Leonardo-san something like a face-pass?
When I asked about it out of curiosity, he answered that every knight stationed in this area was his subordinate.
"...Commander, an important person? Leo-nyaldo-san, an important person?"
He wears a cape, so he must be important. There are knights with short capes too, so I had thought he was the most important among the knights traveling with us. But if every knight stationed in this area is his subordinate, then the meaning of "important" starts to feel staggering.
"Technically, I'm the most important person at the fortress. I'm entrusted with Glunoor Fortress."
"Glunoo-ryu, fortress...?"
"...I'll tell you about it sometime."
He gave my head a gentle pat, signaling the end of the conversation. Closing my mouth and turning forward, the horse began to run again.
...Fog?
At the sight of the landscape turning white and hazy around us, I narrowed my eyes and glared ahead, but I could see nothing. Soon we were enveloped in a deep fog so thick I couldn't even see my own feet, but Leonardo urged the horse on without hesitation. I had no idea where we went, how, or for how long.
Then, as if the world had suddenly opened up, the horse stood at the bottom of a ravine.
The village they stopped at along the way was one that didn't create outcasts like Tina and her family. Everyone died together, in harmony. Since the villagers dropped dead one after another, many of the bodies were left unburied, most left to rot out in the open. Had Leonardo and the others not come, Tina would probably have met the same fate eventually.