[V4C3] Rikard Oks’ Past
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the Sky— Rikard Oks fell into despair.
As Rikard’s knees dropped to the ground, a white-haired young girl squatted in front of him.
Her slightly narrowed amber eyes stared unblinkingly at Rikard.
“Piyo? What’s the matter, Rikard? Does your tummy hurt?”
“Um… you’re one of the Apprentice Mages…”
He recognized that girl. She was the girl who watched over Frederik earlier when he fell asleep in the dirt.
But now that he thought about it, he couldn’t recall ever hearing her name.
As Rikard’s mouth twisted, the girl introduced herself as “Tia.”
“Tia, then. I want you to forget what you just saw.”
“What I just saw?”
“Y’know, that singing, and dancing……”
“Why?”
Her unbelievably innocent ‘why?’ pierced straight through his ashamed feelings.
“Sheesh…..” Rikard whispered before falling silent. Tia tilted her head curiously.
“Rikard, do you like singing and dancing?”
He suddenly remembered that this girl was the gentle person who sang a lullaby for the insomniac Frederik. She probably enjoyed singing no matter the occasion.
On the other hand, Rikard thought he was very different from his image of a connoisseur of songs and dances.
He was nowhere near skilled nor knowledgeable enough to call himself a connoisseur of anything.
“Why hide it?”
She didn’t speak like she was ridiculing or scolding him; rather, Tia asked her question out of genuine confusion.
“Are singing and dancing bad things?”
“Uh…..”
Those words pierced right through his chest. Because Rikard Oks was a person who was saved by song and dance.
It pained him that he had come to think of singing and dancing as something to be ashamed of.
Hesitantly, Rikard slowly mumbled his answer.
“Neither singing nor dancing are bad things……. but I’m not suited for them; it’s embarrassing……”
“Piroro? …….Are you not allowed to sing and dance if you’re not suited for it?”
Tia’s childlike honesty shook Rikard’s heart.
At that point, the emotion that sprung up in Rikard’s heart — and this was probably quite rude to Tia — was the urge one gets to start whispering one’s honest feelings when approached by a neighborhood dog or cat.
Those feelings that he hadn’t shared with anyone before now; the feelings he’d kept hidden.
But if he kept hiding them, he would never be able to move forward.
“…….I want to be the kind of person who can make people laugh.”
Her amber eyes blinked.
Rikard started to awkwardly share his story.
“I was born to a family of Monster hunters…..”
“Piyo…… Monster hunters……”
“It’s probably an unfamiliar concept to those from the other side of the Wall, huh. ‘The dark-skinned Oks’ and ‘the long-limbed Lange’ are Monster hunting families that have been around for a long time.”
While there was a ‘Wall’ to the west of the Wedge Tower that prevented Monsters from coming and going, there were still a number of human settlements to the east of that Wall as well.
The east side of the wall was a large enough area that the Wedge Tower alone was not enough to guard all of it.
That was why Monster-hunting families existed.
The Oks and Lange families hunted Monsters in different areas, but both of them lived in villages relatively close to the Crystal Territory.
While Monsters generally couldn’t leave the Crystal Territory, there were some who wandered near human settlements from time to time, and it was up to those Monster-hunting families to hunt those Monsters and protect the people.
Rikard’s family was no exception.
For as long as he could remember, his life had been day after day of Monster hunting practice. From time to time he would be dragged out to witness actual monster hunts as well.
…….And there, a tragedy occurred.
“I had a little sister who got poisoned during a Monster extermination……. the doctor said she only had a few months left to live.”
They were up against a Monster that took the form of a snake. Their father took the Monster out as soon as he noticed it, but that was only after his sister was poisoned.
Had I been just a little stronger, had I been more aware of his surroundings — he could not count how many times those regrets played in his head.
“I had no idea how to confront my sister knowing she only had a few months to live……”
On the sickbed, his sister always smiled.
Even though she herself should have been more afraid of her coming death than anyone else.
— I need to put on a smile. I need to make as many happy memories as I can.
The more Rikard thought that mantra, the more he wasted his time. He only became more uncomfortable talking to her, and she ended up being more worried for him.
“I couldn’t smile like I should in front of my sister; I couldn’t make her laugh. I could only stand there and fret over what kind of face I should be making or what kind of thing I should be talking about…… But then, a traveling performer came to town.”
“A performer? A person who performs?”
“Pretty much. He sang and danced and did tricks…… He could talk better than anyone I knew, and was extremely talented at telling stories.”
Romantic tales of princes and princesses that would make the heart of any girl dance.
Ridiculous comedies that were impossible to sit through without breaking out in laughter.
Tales of adventure that got your heart pounding with tension but still wrapped up in a happy ending.
Even if they were trying to tell the same story, there was a huge difference between the way Rikard told it and that performer.
If that performer was telling it, even the most cliche old tales would feel fresh and enjoyable.
“That performer knew my sister was on the verge of death, and every day he would visit her room and show off another one of his tricks.”
Every day, that performer would make his sister laugh in a new and interesting way.
While his sister always smiled out of concern for those around her, when the performer was there, she was able to laugh out of genuine enjoyment, and for that Rikard was both grateful and frustrated.
He was her older brother, but he wasn’t able to make her laugh.
He cursed his own failings and spent every day oppressed by this feeling of powerlessness.
“I was distraught that I couldn’t do anything…… but that’s when the performer told me this:”
Rikard closed his eyes and recalled the words he heard that day.
”‘You just need to do what you’ve always done. Making people laugh is my job.’ …….I was saved by those words.”
He couldn’t smile properly in front of his sister. He couldn’t say anything helpful or profound.
And yet, the performer told Rikard that he didn’t need to do anything special; that he should just act the way he always had.
Thanks to those words, he was able to face his sister all the way to the end.
He must still have looked awkward, but nevertheless there was a huge difference between before he heard those words and after.
“Even after my sister died and that performer left on his journey, I’ve always aspired to be something like that……”
“Piyo? Was that song earlier from back then? Um… that Poppo… thing?”
“Yes. It was that performer’s signature song and dance……. my sister was delighted whenever she saw that.”
‘It fills me with energy, you know?’ Remembering his sister’s smile, his chest flushed with joy.
Thinking back, that performer back then wasn’t just making his sister smile. He wanted Rikard to smile as well.
(……..I want to be like that person.)
He was a member of a Monster hunting family, and he couldn’t run away from the fight. He had no intentions of running away either. Fighting to protect the smiles of the people was an important role as well.
And yet, if he was able to do a little trick, say something profound, or make someone laugh in the time between those battles……. he would take great pride in that skill.
“My peers are a little messed up in the head, though……”
“Their heads are messed up?”
“There’s one who smiles when he’s pissed off, and another who cries when she’s pissed off……”
“Piyo…… that’s tough…….”
It really was tough.
He had to deal with a man who smiled from ear to ear while covered in blood and swinging his spear around, and a woman who launched powerful wide-area attacks while insisting that everything was ‘so sad.’
Thinking of both of their circumstances, there wasn’t anything he could do to fix them.
“……That’s why I want to make them laugh normally with something that’s just plain fun. Especially when us in the Extermination Office never know if we might die on the next mission.”