“So I decided I wasn’t gonna be someone who gets stuff taken from him. I was gonna be a taker, and protect what I still had left. Which failed spectacularly, thanks to you.” The silver-haired hunter breathed a long sigh. “That’s what this place is like. You’ve gotta be like that if you want to survive out here.”
He sounded like he’d given up, like a tired old man. “Living longer than other people in a place like this... It’s painful, you know? Just hopelessly painful.” His words held no intensity, just exhaustion and the sense that something inside him had been worn down to nothing.
“Sometimes I wish I was dead.”
I didn’t know what to say to Menel after his emotional outpour. It reminded me of my previous life and the time when the god of undeath’s words had thrown me into a pit of despair.
I wondered how I could comfort him. I wondered how I could encourage him. I didn’t know. I couldn’t do as Mary, Blood, and Gus had. I couldn’t think of anything.
This was something I’d become painfully aware of when I met the ghost of the old woman Marple. There were certainly gods in this world, and if you received their protection, you would become able to heal wounds and cure illnesses. It was almost a little superpower, like the ones you found in comic books. But it wasn’t as if it gave you more life experience. It didn’t give you the ability to say the kinds of words that could resound in someone’s heart, words that could help someone through hard times.
I could heal the body, but not the heart. That was something that, in the end, a person had to take charge of themselves. And as the silence dragged on, I was unable to say anything. What was I supposed to say? I wished someone would tell me. What was I supposed to do in times like this? I had no experience with this in my previous life, and I didn’t have much in this one, either. If Blood, Mary, or Gus were here, they might have been able to come up with something. But for everything I had learned, I couldn’t produce the right words, not even a single sentence, to save my life.
“U-Um... I, I guess, you... uh...” I mumbled something, but it didn’t help. Gods... I felt like I really had regressed to how I used to be. But Menel was in a really bad place right now. I had to say something.
But while I was racking my brain, Menel exhaled sharply. “Right,” he said, stretching his arms above his head to loosen up his stiff body. “Sucks, but gotta move on!”
Huh?
Menel looked at me and tilted his head. “Hm? What’s up? You done making stupid faces?”
“What? Huh...?” I was confused.
No, wait, hold up. He had just been so depressed, and now he... wha?
“Haha, he’s losing it. Y’know, the normal you and the you that does the priest thing are like two totally different people.”
“Pleeeeeeease shut up.”
“Too bad, ’cause you’re pretty cool when you’re full-on priest.”
“I wasn’t—I was just—uhh...”
After taunting me a little, he bounced lightly to his feet and looked at me with serious eyes. “Will... William. Priest of the god of the flame. I’m grateful to you. For stopping me before it was too late, and for saving the guys in the village. So—” He put his hand on his chest, gracefully descended to one knee, and bowed his head before me. “With you as my mediator, I ask the protection of the god of the flame.”
This was the standard phrase used when changing your guardian deity and oath. Startled by the sincerity in his voice, I hurriedly stood to face him.
“Will you do this for me?” he asked.
“I shall be your mediator and bring you together with my god.” I responded with the standard, age-old reply I’d once been taught by Mary. I placed my hand gently on Menel’s head and prayed to my goddess as he knelt. “I pray for you to the god of the flame. May Gracefeel love you, shine on you, and be with you on your journeys.”
In the darkness, I felt a faint flame glow warmly in the air behind me.
“Then to my guardian deity, I make this oath.” Menel raised his eyes and looked up at the flame. “I will atone for my sins and live a positive life, looking forward.” It was a powerful declaration. “Please light the way before me with your flame.”
That had also been Marple’s wish for him, to the very end.
“Menel...”
“Life’s hard a lot of the time. Sometimes it beats me so badly I want to just lie there and die. But I’m not gonna stay down.” He shrugged and put on a brave smile. “I’m gonna get up somehow, and just like Marple said, I’m gonna keep looking forward and do what needs to be done.”
My previous life ended without me ever being able to recover from my despair, and it had taken a pep talk from Mary for me to manage it in this life, too. But Menel had mustered the strength to stand back up all on his own. He had found a way to resolve his internal struggle, changed his attitude, and sought out how to behave to make up for his past behavior; and he had done all this by himself.
He’d had Marple’s words to help him, and he was probably putting up a brave front as well, but even so, I couldn’t have done what he had. How arrogant was I, to think that he needed my words? He was strong. Stronger than me. Stronger than I’d ever thought.
If only I’d had this kind of strength in my past life; maybe something could have been different then. When I thought about this, my chest tightened with a feeling of regret that I couldn’t shake. “Menel, you’re awesome, really,” I said with admiration. “I truly respect you.”
“What, feck off,” he said, rising to his feet and giving one of my shoulders a playful shove. “You’re the awesome one. How do you get that good at fighting?”
“It’s not me that’s awesome. It was my teachers.”
“Can’t imagine what your childhood was like for the life of me. Eh, whatever, I’m not gonna pry,” he said, walking past me. “Let’s get back already. Food’s probably close to being done by now.”
“Oh yeah. You’re right. We’ll make them worry if we’re much longer.” I followed after him, and we headed back to the village together.
The feast of homecoming and mourning was just beginning. Though it was small for a ‘feast,’ they wouldn’t stop offering me drinks. Menel tried to keep a low profile in the corner, so I dragged him out and made him get involved. He resisted, and we ended up getting in a weird scuffle.
It was a night of competition, of fooling around, and of moments spent quietly, listening to the fondly remembered stories of those who had passed away.
Chapter 3
“All our livestock’s been wiped out, and a whole lot of tools that’ll be impossible to replace have been smashed.”
“Wow...”
There were still a lot of problems for the villagers even after taking back their village from the hands of the demons. Many of their draft animals and tools had been lost. The villagers had serious expressions on their faces as they discussed the problem from all angles. “We’re gon’ needa stock up at Whitesails...”
“But what do we do about the money?”
“We need help also.”
An unfamiliar word came up in their conversation, so I asked Menel. “What’s Whitesails?”
Menel looked at me like he was looking at an alien. Was “Whitesails” the name of a place that you couldn’t help learning if you spent any amount of time living here?
“What is the deal with you, seriously?” he asked. “Were you living under a rock?” Then he gave me a brief summary of the history of this region.