[V4C20] Creatures who Cannot Cross the Wall
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the SkyWhile she waddled along, Tia sang a song.
“Lalalua lalalua metea! Lalalua lalalua metea! Lalalua arche di~a~va! ……….”
The song on her lips suddenly came to a stop. Her walking stride also shortened, and her casual waddling turned into slow waddling.
(…Did I do something wrong?)
When the topic turned to her lifespan, Wren mentioned something.
He’d said the Wedge Tower might have some kind of magic to extend her life.
Tia found that very odd.
If it was something about healing the parts of your body that hurt or were damaged, she could understand that. If she was hurt, she’d like to get better.
But she couldn’t understand why anyone would want to extend their lifespan.
That was why Tia had responded:
“What would I do with that much time?”
When she said that, Wren’s face looked like he’d been hurt.
That made Tia sad.
(I didn’t want to make Wren make that kind of face, but…)
By the way, humans live for like forty or fifty years, right? … Depending on the person, they might live even longer than that.
So to them, ‘What would I do with that much time?’ might sound insulting to them.
After all, both Wren and Sevil would have to live for fifty years or more.
It was rare for any Harpy to live more than twenty-five years. Tia had never seen one who’d lived past thirty.
So Harpies wouldn’t live to become little old ladies like humans did. They couldn’t.
For Tia, that much was obvious… and perhaps that was why she thought it was ‘just the right amount of time.’
She’d naturally assumed that Harpies lived as long as they did because twenty years was just the right amount of time for a Harpy to live their life.
If her lifespan was twice or three times as long, then like a watered-down soup, she felt like her life would become less fulfilling.
(Since humans think about so many things, maybe twenty years isn’t enough for them.)
Actually, Tia remembered that Kai— the man who saved her— had touched upon the topic of human lifespans.
“Humans these days live much longer than they did a hundred or two hundred years ago.”
“Why? Is it because humans keep getting stronger?”
“While whether or not a war is going on has a big effect… The real reasons are more stable food supplies, formalized treatment of illnesses and medical techniques, and so on. Humans as creatures are greedy for more life.”
Humans were greedy for more life. She thought that was absolutely the case.
While Monsters had survival instincts, their obsession with humans were far stronger than those instincts.
…And that was why Monsters were going extinct.
Even their fellow magical beings, Dragons and Spirits, didn’t have that sort of obsession with humanity. Some of them might be curious about humans, but it was rare for them to be so reliant that they’d destroy themselves to get what they want.
(What else is there that separates Monsters from humans? …….Right, there’s that.)
She thought of one thing.
—Humans wanted to be something.
In order to become something, twenty years weren’t enough, so maybe that’s why they needed to live longer lives. Why they were so greedy about living.
(…Maybe Monsters really are weak creatures after all.)
With those thoughts clouding her head, she felt her chest start to ache, and Tia flopped down on a nice, grassy spot of dirt, looking up at the sky.
When she was a Harpy, she wouldn’t dare put herself in such a defenseless position as laying on her back.
It was only after taking a human form that she realized. If she slept like this, she could see the sky while she rested.
The sky above her became rather cloudy at some point.
A flock of birds flew across those thick, grey clouds. One of the birds started to drift away from its flock.
—That was Tia.
(If I don’t find my way home soon, then the Harpies I know will all be gone.)
Harpies laid between two and four eggs at a time.
Tia’s sister hatched a day before Tia did. In human terms, that would make them twins.
Their wings were completely different colors, and they didn’t look all that similar to each other, though.
(…I hope my sister is doing okay.)
How long had it been since she drifted away from the flock?
There must have been some Harpies who have reached the ends of their lives in these past few years.
(I need to make it back to Breakneck Gorge as soon as I can.)
For no reason in particular, she was overcome by a feeling of loneliness, and so she started to sing “Pirorororo” in a sad voice, when suddenly she heard a voice from above her head.
“That’s an unusual song for you.”
A shadow fell over Tia’s face. A tall yet malnourished young man looked down on Tia— His light-brown hair wasn’t spiky. It was the older brother, Frederik.
“Frederik.”
“Hello.”
Frederik squatted down beside Tia.
Tia lifted her upper body off of the ground.
“Piroro… Hello.”
“Hm? You don’t seem as energetic as usual. Did Dammer say something to you?”
“Dammer? No, that’s not it.”
At that point, Tia turned back to her thoughts.
She couldn’t find a way to turn her feelings into words.
— When she brought up the difference in their lifespans, she made Wren make a sad face.
— When she thought about the difference in their lifespans, she couldn’t help but miss her sister.
For Tia, who found thinking difficult, she chose her words carefully.
“…Just now, I felt really sad and lonely. Hey, Frederik?”
“What’s up?”
She thought ‘I really want to ask him something.’
Thus, a Harpy who has taken human form, asked a question of a human.
About that uniquely human desire, that Monsters seemed to lack.
“Frederik, do you want to be something?”
“Are you talking about my dreams for the future?”
“Piroro… Something like that?”
That probably wasn’t exactly what she was asking, but in essence she didn’t think he was too far off.
When humans talked about the future, they often ended up talking about what they wanted to be.
Thinking of it through that lens, Tia realized.
“Ah… Could it be that you’re already what you wanted to be?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Rikard told me that you’re from a Monster-hunting family, Frederik. So I was wondering if maybe you wanted to be a strong Monster hunter, and you already are, so…”
Frederik’s face showed a hint of worry as he chuckled.
“I didn’t want to be a Monster hunter at all.”
“…Peu? You didn’t want to be one, but you became one anyway?”
“Pevuvuvu…” Tia let out a groan of confusion.
Frederik’s face became even more conflicted, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“Yeah, weird, isn’t it? I became something I didn’t want to be.”
“Then, do you want to be something else?”
Frederik started to say something, then closed his mouth.
Then, after sitting in silence for a bit with a face that said he was deep in thought, he slowly whispered his answer.
“…I guess I wanted to be a traveler. I wanted to see what it was like to the West of the Wall.”
—He wanted to. Past tense.
Suddenly, Tia recalled something Rikard had said.
“Frederik smiles a lot, but he really is afraid of Monsters, more than anyone else……. He barely sleeps at night at all.”
According to Rikard, Frederik was afraid of Monsters.
And it was true that Monster hunting families were more likely to be targeted by Monsters.
And yet, he fought on the front lines with the Extermination Office.
“Frederik, have you ever thought of quitting Monster hunting and running to the West?”
To the West of the Wedge Tower, there was a massive barrier known as the Wall. Monsters couldn’t cross that Wall.
If Frederik disliked fighting Monsters that much, then all he had to do was escape to the West where there were no Monsters.
“I can’t run away.”
The voice that responded had a stiff resonance to it.
Frederik’s eyes narrowed in a dark, quiet rage.
That rage made the hairs on Tia’s neck stand straight up.
“We can’t run away. We can’t go to the West of the Wall.”
“…Piyo? I thought only Monsters couldn’t cross the Wall?”
“The Monster-hunting families also can’t cross it. Depending on who you ask, some say there was a Monster somewhere among our ancestors, while others say it’s because we’ve been cursed by the Monsters.”
Tia thought both of those explanations sounded possible.
Harpies reproduced by abducting a human man and having intercourse with him. In that case, it wouldn’t be strange to assume that there were other Monsters beside Harpies who copulated with humans as well.
And if that child of a human and a Monster had a more humanlike appearance and was raised in a human village— that child could eventually become the ancestor of people like Frederik or Rikard, according to the former theory.
Alternatively, there was also a chance that a Greater Monster placed a ‘mark’ on them as its prey.
That ‘mark’ could be the reason why the Monster-hunting families were unable to cross the Wall, and that could have been remembered as ‘a Monster’s curse’ through the generations. That was the latter theory.
“It’s not clear which is correct, but ‘the Long-Limbed Lange’ and ‘the Dark-Skinned Oks’ will always bear children with the same appearances. No matter how short of a person you marry, your kids will always end up looking like this.”
As he spoke, Frederik lightly raised one of his long arms.
His tall body, a head taller than those around him, and his long limbs would stand out no matter where he was. Especially if he lived in a small town or village.
“In order for our ancestors to be accepted by those around them, they had no choice but to become Monster hunters… Does that scare you?”
“No. It makes a lot of sense to me. Does that mean Oliver can’t cross the Wall either?”
“…That’s right.”
Harpies must have had some instincts telling them to return to their nest, as they never had strong desires to fly far away.
That meant Tia never felt the desire to go beyond the Western Wall.
Frederik, who wanted to be a traveler, but couldn’t, and ended up becoming a Monster hunter.
Tia, a Harpy who had no intentions of becoming anything.
Despite being such different creatures, the ironic fact was that both of them were unable to cross the Wall all the same.
“Frederik. I… don’t really know how to say it, but…”
“Hm?”
“Thank you for sharing your sad feelings with me.”
These sad feelings were not the kind of thing you should just throw away.
Sadness, happiness, joy, and frustration. It was only through the accumulation of all these different emotions that a Harpy learned what it meant to be human.
In response to Tia’s words, Frederik tilted his head curiously.
“My little rival says the strangest things sometimes.”
“Rival! Piyo!”
“Oh? You’ve get your energy back all of a sudden.”
“When my rival calls me rival, it makes me feel really happy! Like I’ve been acknowledged? Kinda? Pefufu!”
“Haha, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Frederik’s shoulders shook and he laughed breathily.
Tia thought that this person was best suited for that kind of gentle, joyous laughter.