kscans

Chapter 56 - The Mysterious Boy

"What in the world… is that…?"

The place where the abandoned village was supposed to be was now completely surrounded by sturdy looking stone walls. But…

"When I came here before… there was nothing like this…"

"...Is that… really true…? Grandpa."

"What would I gain by lying? When I passed through here hunting eight years ago, there was only the wreckage of a fence. What’s more…"

"What’s more?"

"That fellow Bit, who should have passed through this area six years ago, didn't say anything either. If something like this had been here, that chatterbox would never have kept quiet about it."

"That's true…"

The two of them stood there, stunned into silence. But Dona, perhaps because her mind was more flexible or resilient due to her youth, was the first to recover. At the same time, she noticed that the meadow they were standing in was not ordinary.

She had thought it was just a grassy field, but many of the plants growing there were known as emergency foods. There seemed to be some poisonous plants mixed in, but on the other hand, there were also proper crops growing among them. Conversely, there was almost nothing that was completely useless. Most importantly, there was a clear boundary between this meadow and the surrounding thicket.

"Grandpa… this place is…"

By then, her grandfather, Audel, had also noticed the abnormality of this meadow. He recognized this kind of vegetation. The empty lots and grassy areas near fields, where they planted emergency crops, looked just like this…

"...It feels like the grassy areas around the fields. Which means…"

There must be a field nearby. Probably on the other side of that sturdy stone wall.

But… to build a stone wall of this magnitude, how many villagers could be living on the other side? And yet, the fact that they couldn't hear a single sound was beyond suspicious. It was eerie.

("...Dona, we’re going back to the village. We have to tell everyone about this.")

("Okay, Grandpa. Quietly, right?")

("That’s right. We don’t know what kind of people are living here.")

Trying not to be noticed by the inhabitants of the "fortress," for it was no longer an abandoned village, they began to turn back, tiptoeing away… when the stone gate in front of them creaked open.


(Wow… are they visitors? It’s been about five years since I’ve seen another person.)

The moment the two of them approached the "village," though whether you could call an abandoned place inhabited by only one person a village was debatable, Yuri had sensed them with his Perception. Actually, even before that, his familiar little birds had told him.

(I wonder… are they from that village? …End Village, was it?)

A map left behind by the previous inhabitants, drawn on a wooden board, had shown the location of End Village, so Yuri at least knew of its existence. When he first arrived, he had even considered relying on it if he couldn't make it through the winter. However, once he managed to survive the winter on his own and was able to get by afterward, the option of visiting the village was pushed to a corner of his mind, as he had never been good with people to begin with. …Or rather, he had almost completely forgotten about it. But now, seeing two people arrive here, he seemed to have recalled it from some corner of his memory, wondering if they were residents of End Village.

(…What should I do? If I just let them leave without saying anything… I'll be letting them hold all the cards. …That would be a bad move, wouldn’t it…)

With these thoughts and calculations, Yuri decided to make contact with the two humans.

Isarai Yuuri, now known as Yuri Sarai. He was currently twelve years old.

Five years had already passed since his reincarnation in this abandoned village.