“You memorized it all?”
“Yes.”
I could not see Lorenzo’s expression in the darkness, but his voice was astonishingly calm. It was the voice of someone for whom this was only natural. It reminded me of the way Salkenia had spoken when she said she would bring me back to life.
“……Should I go?”
“If you fall, you won’t come out of it unhurt. It’s a cliff beyond the path.”
“That’s probably true. But I just have to not fall.”
“Right. You just have to not fall.”
I did not want to push Lorenzo onto the cliffside path.
“Tell me the route. I’ll go.”
“Um. I know your stride length, Captain, so I can explain it to you, but.”
Lorenzo spoke with faint uncertainty in his voice.
“If your stride changes even a little, you’ll fall. I think it would be better if I went.”
“I’ll walk as I always do.”
“Can you do that? To be honest, it’s not like I’m not scared, either.”
There really was a slight tremor hidden in his voice. It was so faint that I would not have noticed it if Lorenzo had not mentioned it, and if the darkness had not sharpened my hearing.
“And I don’t know if you know this, but when people walk with their eyes closed, they end up walking in strange directions. They think they’re walking forward, but they’re actually going somewhere else.”
“I know because I tried walking with my eyes closed when I was young. That’s why I practiced walking straight with my eyes closed.”
“……What? Why? To get through this Unknown?”
“Not for that. It’s cool.”
“It’s cool? Walking straight with your eyes closed?”
His voice was incredulous. I thought it was cool to walk straight while everyone else staggered around. Lorenzo apparently did not feel the same way.
“Anyway, I’ll go. You said a navigator’s job is to find the route, right? My job is to walk the route a navigator lays out.”
“Um, Captain. I’m not saying this to upset you.”
“What is it?”
“If I remember something wrong, or say one thing wrong, you’ll fall and die.”
“I know.”
“But you’re going to entrust your life to me? To a child you’ve only exchanged a few words with?”
“You’re my sailor, even if it’s only for one day.”
I had heard that a ship could run aground on a reef because a helmsman turned the steering wheel one turn wrong, or be swept away by rough waves because a sail handler recklessly lowered a sail. If that was true, then sailors were also the ones who saved a ship from reefs and storms.
“Sailors entrust their lives to their captain and head out onto that dangerous sea. Then a captain has to trust his sailors and be willing to risk his life, too.”
“What if you die?”
“Then I die.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“I’m afraid. I’ve died once before.”
I had no intention of denying fear. That was why I could face it.
“Then I’ll ask just one more thing.”
“All right. What is it?”
“What’s at the end that you’re willing to go this far to reach it?”
I looked beyond the darkness. Since there was nothing to see, it was questionable whether I could say that I looked at it, but I certainly wanted to see it.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“What I’m looking for might be there, or something completely different might be there, or there might be nothing at all. The Unknown is hiding it so carefully. How could I know what it is? I don’t know.”
“……Then why are you going? You’re going because of something you don’t even know?”
“Because I don’t know, I’m curious.”
That was a clear fact. Personally, I hoped that Salkenia’s head was at the end, but I had never confirmed it, so I had no idea what would be there. Lorenzo remained silent for a long moment, as though he were thinking something over, before he spoke.
“You’re standing where we started, right?”
“Yeah. I’m still standing here.”
“Take five steps forward.”
I took a step, as I had when I walked forward with my eyes closed as a child.
Step, step, step, step, step.
Perhaps because we were inside a cave, my footsteps echoed faintly. Five steps forward.
“Do you know bearings?”
“I do. You take north as 0 degrees, east as 90 degrees, and south and west as 180 and 270 degrees, right?”
“That’s right. Keep the direction you’re facing fixed as north, then take two steps at a bearing of 50 degrees, toward the northeast.”
It was a precise instruction of direction rather than merely telling me to go right or left. He sounded more professional than I had expected. I had thought he showed promise, but I had not expected him to guide a route like this. I turned and moved forward as Lorenzo instructed.
“Whew.”
I could feel sweat running down my palms. I had memorized this part of the path to some extent, so I could advance without hesitation. What lay ahead now was a truly pitch-black night, without a trace of light.
‘This is scary.’
A chill ran down my spine. I had not even fallen, but a strange sense of weightlessness swept up my body. The soles of my feet itched. In the darkness, so densely packed it was stifling, a cheerful voice made a route for me.
“Turn to the west, 270 degrees, and take half a step.”
***
When Lorenzo first met Howell, he thought the man might be somewhat lacking. Lorenzo knew that he was capable, but he also knew that it was difficult to trust that fact.
‘Is he an idiot?’
Being aboard the same ship meant entrusting each other with their lives. Lorenzo aspired to be a navigator, a role of the utmost responsibility, not an apprentice or an ordinary sailor whose simple mistakes could be tolerated. Naturally, no captain would entrust his life to a child.
“South-southwest, 205 degrees. Three and a half steps.”
But Howell did exactly that. As soon as Lorenzo finished speaking, footsteps sounded.
Step, step, step…… step.
Howell had placed his life in someone else’s hands. Most people would feel burdened and overwhelmed by that kind of responsibility, enough to make a mistake.
“From there, you have to jump forward. The distance is…… between three and three and a half steps.”
Lorenzo felt the burden, too. A single mistake while retracing his memory, or one wrong word, could get Howell killed. On top of that, there was a section of the path near the end that had broken away.
‘Can he jump across it?’
It was a distance that could be crossed easily if he could see it, but things were different in darkness where he could not see even an inch ahead. It was even more so when he was finding the route by relying on a child’s words.
“Whew!”
It was a breath that sounded tense. Howell was neither a fool nor someone madly bold. That was why Lorenzo expected him to come back.
Whoosh! Thump!
But what he heard was the sound of something kicking off the ground and leaping. Lorenzo was aghast. He had told Howell that he would cross it himself, but honestly, he had not been sure that he could jump across that stretch. Yet Howell jumped.
Clatter!
Something fell. Lorenzo covered his mouth to stop a scream from escaping. If Howell had made it, the scream could interfere with him. Then Howell’s voice came.
“What comes after the jump?”
Howell had survived. It seemed that pebbles pushed loose by his feet had fallen. Lorenzo let out a breath, then suddenly realized that he had been relieved.
‘Why?’
Four silver coins. He had been hired for a day, so he only had to do the work he had been given. There was no reason to worry about a temporary captain with whom he had exchanged only a few words.
“One moment.”
Perhaps because he was not sure, Lorenzo hesitated before speaking.
“There’s no guarantee that you jumped exactly three steps, so back up little by little and line up one heel with the edge. Then, probably…… six steps at 5 degrees north.”
“Probably?”
Lorenzo clenched his sweat-soaked hands.
“The path is broken there, so I’m not certain. If it were the way back, I could tell you again.”
“No. I’ll trust you.”
Entrusting his body to Lorenzo’s words in the darkness, Howell advanced along the winding cliffside path.
“……And if you take one step at 310 degrees northwest, that’s the end.”
Perhaps because Howell had moved farther away at some point, Lorenzo could no longer hear his footsteps, but he finished his directions anyway. He could not tell how much time had passed in the darkness. Only then did Lorenzo realize that his hands and feet were shaking and that sweat covered his entire body, as though he himself had walked the path in that darkness.
“Did you make it?”
Feeling a slight unease, Lorenzo asked. Before long, Howell’s voice came from far away.
“I made it! Hahaha!”
At that bright voice, which made it hard to believe that he had just crossed the path like an acrobat, Lorenzo smiled without thinking.
***
[Captain, the darkness has ended.]
When I moved a little farther beyond the end of the cliffside path, the Unknown disappeared. My eyes, adapted to the darkness, struggled to take in even that frail light. I frowned for a moment and blinked slowly.
“Oh.”
Moonlight squeezed through a gap in the ceiling and lit the space. It was an island rising at the center of a vast cavity. A large, hemispheric expanse of land stood tall. More precisely, it was not floating. The pillar beneath it, which supported it like the stalk of a mushroom, was smaller than my head, making it only appear to float. I stood on a narrow path connected to its upper surface.
‘How strange.’
It looked like a circular arena, or perhaps an altar rising high into the air. Far below the path, a stream that had leaked in from somewhere stretched to the boundary of the darkness.
‘Seawater.’
The Unknown, formed by seawater leaking in from somewhere within this vast cavity, was serving as the doorway to this space. The maze-like cliffside path inside it was strange, but it was not a path humans could have made, so I assumed it was part of the Unknown as well.
‘It was as though it had been set up to keep anyone from reaching this place.’
At the end of the straight path, I was able to step onto the land. It was about the size of the deck of a large ship, so I could see everything there at a glance.
‘Traces of people.’
Ruins of some structure, so collapsed that I could not even guess what it had been, were piled up on one side. It looked like a small stone temple, but perhaps an earthquake had struck, because it had crumbled until its original form was hard to recognize.
‘Is there anything here?’
Other than large rocks and trees, I could see nothing else, so I headed toward the ruins. Salkenia’s head might have fallen somewhere among them.
[Captain.]
“Hm?”
[I sense something familiar behind there.]
“Something familiar? Is it your head?”
I headed in the direction Salkenia indicated. Beyond the ruins that looked like a broken altar, there was a chest. It sat beneath moonlight pouring down through the gap in the ceiling. It was extraordinary at a glance.
‘Could this be?’
I could not help but feel hopeful. I had come to the strange point marked on the nautical chart and found a chest. As far as I knew, that could mean only one thing.
‘A treasure chest?’
My heart raced. It was like the darkness. Because I did not know what was inside, it aroused fear and anticipation at once.
“You said you sensed something familiar, right?”
[That is correct.]
It occurred to me that it might not contain treasure, but Salkenia’s head. But what I was seeking now was not treasure, but Salkenia’s head. If this chest held her head instead of treasure, I thought I would be even happier.
Clunk.
I tried to open the chest, but unfortunately, it was firmly locked and would not open. It seemed I would need a key.
‘Should I break it? It looks sturdy. Do I need to carry it outside?’
It did not look as though I could break it alone, but if I enlisted the skeleton sailors, I thought we might be able to force it open. Or I could look for a key. Since there was a chest here, the key might be nearby as well. As I looked around, I found something.
“……Why are you here?”