27 - Aurelia the Reincarnated
I walked in the direction Aurelia had taught me, and first hit the rock wall. After that, all I had to do was go back the way I came, so it was simple. As expected, I didn't want to see the decomposing corpse again, so I kept my hand on the rock wall and walked along it. After walking a while, a foul smell drifted over, so I pinched my nose and hurried past the area. Eventually, white pebbles began to scatter across the ground, and I reached the place where I'd first found the bones scattered around.
...The Black Knight should be around up above here, so all I had to do was call, right.
Would just calling really be enough? Would my voice even reach up there? I was a little worried, but this was all I could do right now. If my voice didn't reach, I'd just think of another way. Anyway, I decided to try calling the Black Knight, and took a deep breath.
"Black Knightht! Help me! Black Knightht!!"
Normally I could pronounce 'san' well enough, but shouting made my pronunciation get a bit weird.
...But I won't worry about it. Aurelia-san said I should act more like a child my age, too. Having a slightly lispy way of speaking is just one of those things that happens when you're a little girl.
While fooling myself like that, I called out several times, but there was no response from above the cliff.
...If my voice won't reach, maybe I could throw a stone up to the top of the cliff?
A good plan is as good as done, I thought, and gathered up the pebbles lying on the ground. Of course, even if they looked like pebbles, I avoided the human bones.
"Hiyah!"
I tried throwing a pebble toward the top of the cliff, but it bounced right off the rock wall and fell back down. I don't think it even flew two meters high.
...Maybe I should stand farther back?
A stone I threw would trace a parabolic arc before hitting the ground. The reason it failed was that it hit the rock wall before reaching the highest point of that arc. It was partly because I only had the arm strength of a little girl, but it definitely wasn't because I was bad at throwing stones. I moved a little away from the rock wall and tried throwing another pebble. The pebble traced a low arc, tapped against the rock wall with a clink, and fell.
...Maybe I should stand a bit farther back?
I tried throwing from about a meter away. This time, the stone clearly hit the rock wall after it had passed the highest point of its arc.
...A little girl's arm strength is seriously unreliable.
Maybe I should give up on trying to land the pebble on the cliff and just focus on throwing it high. The way you use your strength should be different for throwing far versus throwing high.
I gathered more pebbles and went back to the rock wall. I couldn't see the top even when I looked up, but I felt like I could at least throw a pebble high.
"Hiyah!"
The pebble I tossed went up high. Maybe because the strength I'd been using to throw far was now being used to throw high, the stone flew higher than before.
...Is that kind of working?
I repeated it a few times and felt like I was starting to get the hang of it. If I didn't have to worry about catching it, I could probably throw it even higher.
"...I did it!"
After tossing pebbles another dozen or so times, I finally started getting some to land on the top of the cliff. I heard the sound of pebbles hitting the ground up above, rolling a little. Even when I waited below for a while, the stones I'd thrown didn't come falling back down.
"Black Knightht! Notice me, pleath!"
While throwing pebbles high, I desperately tried calling out from below the cliff. This was the limit of what I could do to reach the top right now. If I had the adult strength of someone like Leonardo, I might have been able to climb the rock wall.
"Black Knightht! Black Knightht!!"
I don't know how many times I called out. By the time I'd used up all the pebbles suitable for throwing, I finally heard a man's voice from above the cliff.
"What's going on down there?!"
The voice was a bit drawn out, probably because the other person was shouting too. When I finally told the Black Knight who'd noticed me that 'Aurelia is stuck and in trouble,' he told me to move away from the cliff a bit. When I followed his instructions and stepped back from the rock wall, the Black Knight came sliding down the nearly vertical cliff face.
...Whooooooa, amazing! So cool!! But scary! There's no way I could ever copy that!
The Black Knight came down along with pebbles that had probably crumbled off during his descent, and I looked up at the cliff again. I couldn't imitate him, but Aurelia had said if I made noise here the Black Knight would come, so she must have known he could get down from this spot.
...Ah, I think I just thought of something unpleasant.
A place where white skeletal remains were scattered. The Black Knight was always up above here, and sometimes dis-posed of apprentices who ran away from Aurelia. And the reason I'd first reached this place was because there were arrows carved into the trees in the forest.
...Could it be... those arrows on the trees. Were they markers left by apprentices who'd run away over the generations, showing a route where you could get out from the cliff without being spotted by the Black Knights at the valley entrance?
It was just a random thought, but it was terrifying how well it fit together. The path I'd casually chosen to walk was, for anyone who was Aurelia's apprentice, a path leading to death.
...Scary!
For an instant, the eye sockets of the decomposing corpse flashed through my mind. I felt a chill run down my spine.
I suddenly wanted to leave this place immediately, and tugged at the Black Knight's arm. I wanted to get back to Aurelia quickly.
Guided by Aurelia, who was being carried on the Black Knight's back, we safely returned to Aurelia's house by evening. When I asked Aurelia, who seemed to have trouble not just walking, but even standing or sitting, what had happened, she only answered, "I took a witch's blow." Of course, since the Black Knight was there, this was English translated for me by the Black Knight. That Black Knight was barely holding back his laughter, trembling, saying things like "A witch getting hit by a witch's blow..." until Aurelia got angry and chased him away with her staff.
...That Black Knight-san was the one who carried us all the way home, you know.
Even if he was a benefactor, the Black Knight was still a Black Knight. Aurelia swung her staff as if to say 'get lost now that you're done,' and I didn't even have time to thank him.
Aurelia said she'd be incapacitated for a few days, so she stopped holing up in her workshop. She said she'd do material preparation until the pain subsided. After breakfast, she sat next to me using the mortar in the living room, sorting through ingredients.
"In this life, my family lived in a small town. They were a little poor, but a normal family."
While we were silently working, Aurelia spoke up, perhaps because she'd gotten bored. I hadn't thought she was the type to talk about her past, but maybe it was also meant as a warning for me. It was just yesterday that she'd warned me not to be found out as a reincarnated person.
"I was still small too, and the distinction between this world's language and my past life's language was fuzzy... I accidentally hummed a song in English."
"A song?"
"Haven't you heard it? It should have been a pretty famous song..."
The song Aurelia then hummed for me was one I'd heard even in Japan across the sea. Even if I didn't know the title, I'm sure everyone has heard it at least once. It was that famous of a song.
"Someone or other who heard it... anyway, someone started making a fuss that I was a reincarnated person. At first my parents were skeptical, but they were blinded by the mountain of money the slave trader piled up, and they sold me off."
"...So that's why you don't like the Black Knights?"
When it came to slave traders who came to buy reincarnated people, I only knew Leonardo. Apparently the slave trader who came to Meille Village long ago was from a neighboring country, but in this country, the Black Knights came to retrieve them.
"The ones who came to buy me back then were the Sedovara Church's people."
So the slave traders were apparently church people.
...Is the Church different from the religious churches I'm thinking of? Buying people... that doesn't really feel like something a religious organization would do, does it?
I only had the little knowledge Leonardo had told me, but I thought I'd heard that the Sedovara Church worshipped the god of medicine arts, Sedovara. That they carefully preserved and managed the knowledge of Saint Yuta Hiraga. I never imagined they were the kind of facility that bought people.
"My parents used the windfall to start a business... well, they were just craftsmen originally. There was no way they could run a business. Their shop went under in no time, and they were drowning in debt. Serves them right."
Apparently by then, the neighborhood's opinion of their family had soured. They'd sold their child even though they weren't starving, and no one helped them.
"But I was still young too. I once escaped from the Church and went back home... It would have been one thing if the Church had sent me back, but the day my parents tried to sell me to the Church again, that was it. I knew for sure. These people aren't my parents. This isn't my home."
By the time she ran away, the Sedovara Church had already figured out that Aurelia was just a reincarnated person who understood English, that she didn't have any useful knowledge, and that she wasn't the reincarnated person who could read Japanese or German that they were looking for. As for the harsh beating she received when she was dragged back... when she inherited all the skills of the Valley's Wise Woman, she didn't just repay it exactly... she clearly returned it double. No matter how high one's position is within the Church, someone who can make medicines whose recipes only exist in oral tradition, even if they have no status, is more valuable than someone who can only make medicines anyone could make as long as the recipes remain. If you inherited the title of the Valley's Wise Woman, the Sedovara Church would apparently grant any wish they could fulfill, just to keep the Wise Woman in a good mood to work.
...Aurelia-san, can she basically do whatever she wants? Also, the Sedovara Church is a weird place, huh.
Normal people in power can't acknowledge anyone who threatens their position. Even if someone with somewhat special abilities existed, they'd treat them as their subordinate.
When I asked Aurelia about this curiously, apparently at the very top of the Sedovara Church is Sedovara, the god of medicine arts. Below that, if we're talking about human positions, there are great figures who contributed to medical development, deceased people like Yuta Hiraga, a famous name I also know, arranged as saints. And below them comes the Church's internal hierarchy. When I asked where the Valley's Wise Woman fit in, she said the Valley's Wise Woman is counted as a disciple of Saint Yuta Hiraga, positioned between the saints and humans.
...Wouldn't that make her practically at the top of the Sedovara Church?
When I pointed that out, she didn't deny it.
"The Church folks keep telling me to live in town, you know. But there are too many people and it's bothersome, and this valley has lots of ingredients I can gather, so I've settled here."
Since they indulged Aurelia's selfish desire to not leave the valley, it seems Aurelia dutifully accepts the apprentices the Church sends every time. If the apprentices properly inherit the knowledge of the medicine arts, Aurelia's mind would be a little more at ease. She may hole up in the valley because dealing with people is troublesome, but it seemed Aurelia also wanted to avoid the medicine arts created by Saint Yuta Hiraga being lost.
"...Should I become Aurelia-san's apprentice?"
I'd heard you'd get killed if you ran away halfway. But Aurelia was clearly already getting up there in years, and I couldn't say for sure that something like her throwing out her back and being unable to move while out gathering materials, like this time, wouldn't happen again. Setting aside the apprentice issue, she probably needed someone to watch over her daily life. Even more so if Aurelia was the sole holder of such valuable knowledge.
"Not right now, I don't need one. Your arms and legs are too short, you can't do any real work."
Aurelia pinched my nose and snorted. To Aurelia, my offer from someone who was nothing more than a toddler was probably nothing but unwanted meddling.
"...Like that knight said, maybe I'd consider it once you're an adult. After all, if you're found out as a reincarnated person, you'll be sold off to the Sedovara Church anyway."
And eventually you'd be sent to this valley anyway, Aurelia said with a laugh.
"Just make sure to enjoy your childhood in this life."
Chapter 2 didn't end... there's one more chapter.