Chapter 49
Chapter 49 – Sky
They decided that Paul would keep watch throughout the night, while Wynn and Leti would keep watch at dawn. The three hid behind the chicken coop, enduring the smell of the chickens, so that they would not be seen from the fields.
Paul, wrapped in a blanket, had been watching the fields intently. Suddenly, he gave Wynn, who was sleeping beside him, a shake.
“Somebody came… Hey, wake up. And wake Leti, too. We have a ‘guest’ to welcome.”
Wynn came to at once. He proceeded to gently wake the girl up.
Wynn then copied Paul and peeked around the corner of the chicken coop.
Sure enough, he saw the silhouette of a person in the fields.
They hadn’t brought any lamps in order to avoid giving themselves away, but luckily, the night sky was bright enough for them to see that it was a human.
‘So it really was a kid from the slums…’
Judging by the size of the figure, the person appeared to be around Leti’s age.
Was he stealing vegetables from the fields because he wasn’t able to get enough food to eat?
Crawling on all fours, Leti peeked out from under Wynn. Wynn glanced at her thoughtfully.
‘Anyway, if that’s the case, then I don’t understand why the footprints stopped…’
The previous evening, Wynn and Paul had left the sleeping Leti in the cottage. Wynn led Paul to where he had discovered the footprints.
“Well done, Wynn.”
As expected, Paul saw that there was a set of small footprints on the ground.
“The footprints lead to the river. I considered following them further, but I decided that it would be best not to go alone.”
“Yeah, your judgement was correct.”
The two of them traced the footprints back to the river.
Pa.s.sing through the plains, they came upon a small hill.
The footprints continued over the hill.
“It leads away from Simurgh.”
“That’s right… He might have circled around the hill and followed the river to the slums in order to avoid being discovered. Or maybe there’s a nearby village, and some brat was the thief.”
“Is there a village around here?”
“There are villages scattered all around the city.”
They could see the gently flowing river water from the top of the so-called ‘hill’.
The river was too wide to cross without a bridge.
“The footprints are getting farther apart. They must have started running.”
The small footprints were heading straight towards the river.
Wynn swiftly followed the footprints.
As Paul followed after him, he thought, ‘At least that part of him is still child-like.’
“Ah.”
Wynn cried out in confusion.
“What is it?”
“The footprints stopped…”
When Paul caught up to Wynn, he saw that the footprints truly had stopped several meters away from the riverbank.
“Can you see any other footprints elsewhere?”
“What do you mean?”
In the torchlight, the two of them combed the surrounding area carefully, but were unable to find any other clues.
‘If we went after it now, we could catch it, but…’
If they didn’t know how it had disappeared in the first place, it would be dangerous to carelessly make a move.
It could be a monster with that sort of ability, even if Paul had never heard of such a monster.
A monster that was only able to steal vegetables and eggs wouldn’t be that strong.
Still, if he just let it get away, he wouldn’t be able to give a proper report to the adventurers who were going to subjugate the monster.Information was money.
He would get an extra reward if he could provide information useful to the subjugation.
“Let’s chase after the thief!”
Wynn and Leti nodded in a.s.sent.
The small figure probably intended to steal from the day’s harvest before walking unsteadily away from the fields.
It seemed to be headed towards the hill, as expected.
When the thief was halfway across the field, the three of them left their hiding spot.
In order to avoid being noticed, they crouched down and chased after the figure’s silhouette.
When they reached the field, they could see that the thief’s loot was a head of cabbage.
Cabbages could be eaten in soup or preserved with salt and spices.
On top of a large leaf where the cabbage had been planted, they found some moss that was good for making salves.
“He’s almost over the hill. Hurry up!”
The thief’s unsteady gait wasn’t fast, but he had nearly reached the top of the hill.
Eventually, the small figure reached the top.
Then, it paused for a moment before running down the other side of the hill, heading towards the river.
“Run!”
Paul hissed. The three of them started running.
Due to their early morning training, Wynn and Leti easily overtook Paul.
They reached the top of the hill.
Suddenly—
“Wha—?”
On the thief’s back, they saw a pair of pure-white wings glistening in the moonlight. With several powerful flaps of his wings, the thief’s body floated into the sky.
“It’s an Avian… I’ve only read about them in books.”
(TL: the kanji for this is literally “wing+human”)
Wynn murmured.
Avians were a race that lived near mountains and forests.
Their defining feature was a pair of wings that sprouted from their backs. Other than that, they didn’t differ much from humans.
“Why is one of them here?”
Avians had enormous magic power, to the point that they were one of the races that some humans in certain regions idolized.
Unfortunately, due to the catastrophic damage they had suffered from the demons in ancient times, their numbers had diminished.
There were rumours of a handful of villages that did interact with them, though.
“I get it. They used the hill to get a running start in order to take off. The mystery behind the footprints has been cleared up. That’s good.”
“I guess it’s impossible to chase after them.”
“I wonder if the adventurers from the Guild will even believe that the culprit was an Avian.”
Still dumbfounded, Wynn and Paul resignedly exchanged words.
They had encountered a semi-legendary being who had flown away, out of their reach.
It seemed to be headed to the forest upstream.
Even if they wanted to chase after it, it had already flown across the river.
“Would it have been fine if we had caught up to it more quickly?”
“But from what I’ve read, Avians are really strong.”
“…But was the thief strong enough to be idolized?”
The thief’s body was small, so even if it was an Avian, it was probably still a child.
If they captured the child though, there was the possibility that an adult Avian might come to retrieve the child.
“What’s wrong?”
Leti curiously looked on as she watched Wynn and Paul endlessly discuss the issue.
“Aren’t we going to chase after the flying person?” Leti asked.
“Even if we chased after the thief, it’s kind of hard to, since they’re flying,” replied Paul.
“I guess we have to catch the thief when they come back.”
“But even if we tried to catch it, isn’t it gonna fly away?”
“Maybe we could lay a trap.”
“But if we do that, what will you do if you get injured? I think we should leave it to the veteran adventurers.”
“Huh? We can catch it ourselves. Even if we told Randy, tomorrow is his day off.”
(TL: I have no idea who this Randy person is. I’m a.s.suming a character was renamed, but I’ll leave it like this for now.)
“Aren’t we chasing after them?”
Leti asked once again.
“Flying aside, if we pursue them while it’s this dark…”
Wynn answered Leti’s questions in place of Paul, who was still lost in thought.
The river was quite wide.
Even though the river wasn’t flowing rapidly, they didn’t know how deep the water was.
It would be too dangerous to cross it in the dark.
“Then, we just have to fly, right?”
“What?”
Wynn wasn’t sure if he had heard Leti correctly.
Paul also turned towards Leti.
“It’s fine if we can fly, right, Onii-chan?”
Leti repeated herself.
At that moment, they felt a gentle breeze against their faces.
Leti smiled jubilantly at Wynn.
Paul was enthralled by her smile.
It was completely different from the expression she had made when Wynn left to look for clues by himself.
Leti’s doll-like face looked like an artist’s impression of a spirit. The unearthly beauty of her smile seemed fleeting.
The moonlight seemed to be gathering around Leti’s feet.
Upon looking closer, it was Leti’s body that was giving off light.
Paul rubbed his eyes to make sure what he was seeing was real. Suddenly, he felt weightless.
““Whoa!!””
Their bodies floated up into the night sky.