Chapter 33
Both men smiled at Alice’s face.
It was like the forced smile of someone receiving a terribly made homemade cake as a gift.
‘They don’t seem happy to see me at all.’
The officer spoke in a light tone:
“Aren’t you the lady who came to our station? I believe you reported a lost wallet.”
“Ah, yes. So you remember me.”
“Did you find your wallet?”
“Yes, thanks to you.”
Yeah, right.
At her reflexive empty words, Fiore made an obvious “kup” sound while pretending to hold back laughter. If he were a bit closer, she would have stepped on his foot.
The officer lifted his hat.
“Glad to see you’re doing well. Take care of yourself.”
“Are you finished with your business here?”
“Yes. Is there something you’d like to say?”
“…”
There was so much she wanted to say.
I should have listened when you told me not to enter here. What is this land? How much do you know?
…Do you also know about the person we dismembered?
But there was nothing she could actually say.
“No, nothing.”
“Then, good day to you all.”
The two children raised their hands high.
“Thank you for your work!”
“Have a safe trip!”
The officer didn’t even give the children a forced smile. As soon as his business was done, he mounted his horse and spurred it on.
Alice shielded the children’s faces from the flying dust. Only after the officer was far away did she ask Fiore:
“What was the officer doing here?”
“That’s not the important thing right now.”
“What?”
“Ugh, hold on.”
Fiore suddenly crouched down. His massive frame compressing made him look like a huge boulder on the ground. Ignoring Alice’s question, he reached out to Gon.
“Why are you crying, Gon? Did the doctor make you cry?”
“What? Wait, really?”
Alice hurriedly bent down beside Fiore. Though Gon quickly lowered his head, he couldn’t hide his reddened eyes.
“Gon!”
“Hnn…”
Gon’s lips quivered.
“The doctor… isn’t… bad…”
“What’s wrong, hm?”
“I just… miss my dad too…”
Gon bit his lip. But judging by his crumpling chin, he was fighting a losing battle against tears.
Maybe talking about family with Carla earlier was the problem.
Alice frantically apologized:
“Gon, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up family talk, right?”
“That’s not it! It’s not your fault, doctor!”
“…”
“WAAAHHHH!”
As if his shout was a signal flare, Gon started crying in earnest. The streaming tears left Alice’s mind blank.
What was she supposed to do when a child cries? Did she learn this in university?
‘You’re so mature, handling painful shots so well‘ – that kind of praise might work… No, this isn’t the hospital!
Alice turned to Carla in confusion, but instead of a hint, another panic awaited her.
Carla’s lips were quivering too.
‘Oh no.’
Just as Alice herself felt like crying,
Fiore spoke up.
“Let’s have a contest to see who can cry the longest.”
“What?”
Ignoring Alice’s question, he seriously added to the two children.
“If you win, I’ll buy you a toy. How about a ball? A rubber ball.”
“Real rubber?”
Carla’s mouth gaped open. Fiore’s eyes sparkled.
“Why aren’t you starting? Done crying already?”
“…Hic… waahh!”
“Good. Hey Gon, would you like a rubber ball too?”
“Hic… sniff… I… I…”
“Right, you don’t like throwing things. Instead of a ball, how about a small hammer? You said you wanted to learn how to hammer nails, right?”
“Really? …Ah, waaahhhh!”
Gon caught on quicker than Carla. Watching Carla force out tears seemed to help him squeeze out more sad thoughts. His lower lip wrinkled like a walnut shell.
But Alice could tell.
The little ones’ tears were coming to an end.
“Hic… uh… uh…”
“Sniff… sniff… Bwahaha!”
Gon burst out laughing first. It must have been hard to maintain sad feelings while watching Carla’s face get funnier the more she tried to force herself to cry.
Carla couldn’t hold out much longer either. Though she was smarter about it, when she realized she couldn’t cry anymore, she hung her head and covered her face with both hands.
The “sniff, sniff” sounds from behind her hands did sound somewhat like crying, but-
“Carla, we can see your face.”
“Hic, hic, hic…”
“I can still see you.”
“…Ah!”
Carla slightly spread her fingers to check if she was really visible, only to meet Fiore’s grinning face. Her indignant yelp couldn’t save her now.
Just as the children’s cheeks puffed up in protest, Fiore quickly scooped them up, one under each arm.
“Eek!”
“Both of you lose!”
“No fair, I cried longer!”
“That’s not true! But we should get at least one toy, you lia- Ahhh!”
He spun around with the children under his arms, physically dispersing their protests.
“Waaahhhh!”
“Hahahahaha!”
Who knows how many times he spun.
Alice followed behind Fiore, picking up shoes as they flew off, while he moved forward bit by bit.
When the giggling laughter turned to panting breaths, Fiore set the two children down. They stumbled.
“Careful now.”
“Okay… But what was that police officer here for earlier?”
“Seems a murderer who escaped from the city a few days ago might have come this way. Apparently killed a witness and an officer too.”
Alice almost dropped the shoe she was putting back on Carla.
In contrast, Carla’s voice remained calm.
“Haven’t heard news like that in ages.”
“Want to hear more? Apparently, after killing a butcher and his wife, he hid among pig carcasses until a customer found him. Then, he grabbed a bunch of butcher knives and ran off. So, we should be careful.”
“Wow, wow!”
This doesn’t seem appropriate for children’s education. Alice frowned, but her concern didn’t reach the children who were clearly enjoying the sensational story.
Carla’s eyes sparkled.
“Does he still have the knives? What does he look like?”
“A bald man with bushy brown beard.”
“Then he probably won’t come into the village.”
Gon chimed in.
“People without hair stand out more, so rumors spread quickly. If it were me, I’d hide in the forest.”
“Well, everyone thinks differently. He might be running out of food too.”
“But you said he took butcher knives? He could hunt, right?”
“There’s no bread in the wild, kid. A sad truth for all fugitives.”
A joke too calm for the situation.
Alice was reminded again that this was a village at the edge of the world.
They say murderers from the city often flee to the countryside. As if it were some land of freedom.
She never thought she’d hear up close what she used to just ‘tsk’ at in newspapers.
Alice asked.
“Fiore. You’ll tell Madam Adelaide about this, right?”
Her voice was drowned out by Fiore’s. It was just as she finished saying his name.
“Time to head back, kids. Nothing to see out here.”
“Um…”
The children looked at Alice uncertainly. They must have noticed how Fiore ignored her.
Alice raised her voice again.
“Are you going to tell Madam Adelaide about this?”
“…About what?”
He answered reluctantly, not even looking at her. As if staring at someone else’s containment facility roof was the most important thing in the world.
“About the wanted murderer wandering nearby.”
“This isn’t anything new. If you want to show off to Madam that you know something, go ahead and tell her yourself.”
“…”
“You guys staying out here? Then I’m heading in.”
Fiore patted the children’s heads and picked up his tool bag. His body turned sharply. Those long, sturdy legs like a horse’s would soon carry him far away…
That’s when Carla quickly grabbed Fiore’s collar and shouted.
“The doctor said she has something to tell you!”
Gon backed her up.
“That’s right. That’s why she asked us to help find you.”
Fiore couldn’t shake off the children’s hands. Instead, he looked at Alice with a cold expression from a height the children couldn’t see.
“What is it, doctor?”
“Well…”
She came to say thank you.
For carrying water, for being the first to help support Arno while others just watched.
Above all, if his intention in stealing her wallet was truly to help a complete stranger like Alice, she should express her utmost gratitude…
Before she could refine her words.
Fiore’s sentence dropped abruptly.
“That’s quite a serious face you’re making. Did you come to say something not suitable for children’s ears?”
“What? No, nothing like that!”
“Then it must be even more trivial. If I have to spare time, I’d rather hear things that can’t be said in front of others.”
“W-why would I say anything like that!”
Fiore didn’t even listen further, just shrugged and turned around. This time he even grabbed Gon’s reaching hand and lifted him up. Gon let out a delighted squeal.
Carla looked at Alice uncertainly.
Alice gently pushed Carla’s back.
“Go on with them.”
“What about what you wanted to say?”
“It wasn’t anything important, don’t worry.”
After hesitating, Carla ran toward Fiore. As soon as she grabbed his hand, he tucked her under one arm and walked away.
A peaceful scene, peaceful sounds, like a picture.
Alice waited for it all to fade away while pondering.
‘Fiore. He kept ignoring me, didn’t he?’
What could be the reason?
Because he helped her multiple times and never got anything in return? Maybe he saw her as an ungrateful person and decided to just ignore her?
Though she pondered, for Alice, who was awkward with human relationships, there were only two conclusions:
One: The cause was unknown.
Two: Being ignored wasn’t, strictly speaking, a bad thing.
‘We had a bad first impression anyway. There wouldn’t have been any joy in talking with him.’
Everything just returned to how it was at first.
It wasn’t like she could suddenly get along with someone like him. People who could turn every situation into something amusing should just stick with others like them.
Even while thinking this, Alice, now standing, searched for Fiore’s back one more time.
Though she was certain he would have left her sight by now, his back remained irritatingly visible in her field of vision for quite a while before disappearing.
***
Nathan had always mocked fatalists.
With ability and will, two things alone, people can keep moving forward. His principle was that ‘those who cry about encountering misfortune simply lack willpower.‘
That lasted until his late twenties.
In the process of breaking through the wall of becoming a full professor, Nathan entered his thirties slightly more rounded, and experienced various misfortunes and fortunes.
Of course, the greatest misfortune was encountering the village of ‘Reki’ in his late thirties. This was truly a small-scale disaster. So much so that he had an ominous feeling it might be life’s final misfortune.
But while investigating the herbs Arno had vomited.
“Huh…?”
He’d found a stroke of luck in all this misfortune.
