***
Someone once said that the people of the North were strong. They claimed that because it was a place where winter never ceased, one could not endure unless they were strong. That statement was half-right.
Nature enthusiasts often said that nature made humans strong, but that was not the case for the North. This place did not grant the luxury of growth. Only humans who were born strong survived in the North.
Whenever snow fell, it piled higher than a person's head, and it was common for the snow that fell the previous year to remain unmelted until the summer of the following year. Monsters that had existed since before history itself roamed day and night, sometimes even leaping over the walls of the fortresses. Weakness could not exist there. To be weak was to meet immediate death.
However, there was an error in that saying. Summer did come to the Northern lands. Whether naturally or artificially, summer did indeed arrive. Though, since it only showed its face briefly before vanishing, the crops never even had the chance to ripen.
Occasionally—very occasionally—there were years in a cycle of once every several decades where summer descended so intensely that the earth parched dry. The last time such a year occurred was over fifty years ago. It was as far in the past as the entire lifespan of a single human being. However, I remembered that time vividly.
It was a memory riddled with holes due to forgetfulness, perhaps even distorted by nostalgia. What was certain was that I was not alone that year, and that she was there by my side.
“Ulrichi.”
She, Hilde, called out to me.
“You do not age, do you?”
We were walking through the fields.
As the snow that had covered the fields in white melted away, green sprouts that shimmered like they were covered in fresh dew rose up from between the clods of earth. The scent of grass, a rare fragrance to encounter in the North, tickled my nose. The sky, which had been gloomy and shrouded in clouds all year long, was blue, and the wind that usually carried the snow was warm.
“I do not age.”
“And you do not die, either.”
I wondered what Hilde was trying to say. I pondered what her reason could be for suddenly asking such an obvious fact. She was well aware that I had lived for a very long time, even though I was not a half-blood of human and elf.
“Is it not painful?”
But that was the first time she had ever asked about eternal life. I had never particularly considered it a secret, but she had kept her silence as if it were some monumental mystery. So why was she asking now, after all this time?
I stopped my footsteps. Walking beside me, she stopped a step later and stood before me, turning her body to face me directly. Her pupils trembled slightly.
“Was I being rude?”
Perhaps anxiety arose from my silence, as she asked the question cautiously.
“No.”
“If it is troubling, you do not have to tell me.”
“It is not like that.”
I was simply at a loss for words on how to respond.
“As you know, I neither age nor die. Time always flows past me and leaves me behind. Even the elves, who seem to possess eternal life, eventually crumble before the years. What they possess is merely the right not to age; therefore, they meet their deaths slowly.”
“······.”
“The same goes for dragons. When the Third Human Empire rose, the first dragon turned to dust in that far-off land. Of course, they were born before me… but today, I have lived longer than them. And look at me. Is there anything different about the me of the past that you remember and the me of right now?”
Hilde shook her head, indicating that there was no change.
“I have sent many people away. I will continue to do so in the future. The 'pain' you are asking about must be this. You are asking if it is not painful to have to send others away and be the one left behind alone.”
“That is right. I thought that you—”
“If you ask if that is painful, then of course, it is painful.”
I raised my hand and stopped her words.
“But life itself is not painful. Fortunately, forgetfulness exists for me as well. As memories are erased, they become nostalgia. You understand what I am saying, right? The present always becomes the past, but recalling the past is not always painful.”
She looked as though she wanted to say something, then swallowed her breath. After hesitating for a moment, she opened her mouth again. Her voice shook unsteadily, mirroring her trembling eyes as she looked up at me.
“Someday, I will also become a part of your nostalgia.”
“Yes.”
“In times like that, shouldn't you say that you will remember me?”
“I suppose so.”
“What a coldhearted person······.”
Hilde laughed softly.
“So? What is the reason you brought this story up?”
“May I ask a favor of you?”
A favor?
“When I die, I want you to take over the domain.”
“Are you telling me to inherit the title?”
“Yes. You, and no one else.”
Only then did her inner thoughts become clear. However, I feigned ignorance and asked.
“Do you have no intention of passing it down to your relatives?”
“You know how I feel about those people.”
Yes, I knew very well.
She had inherited the title at the age of eight, and I was the one who had looked after her by her side. Since I was the person who had blocked the devilish hands trying to snatch the title away from her when she was a child, I knew the situation all too well.
“I am begging you.”
Hilde took my right hand with both of her hands.
Bony hands, withered wrinkles—that sight robbed me of my words. It made me, who had been about to say that it would be difficult, truly troubled. How many times had she ever asked a favor of me?
I knew the intention contained within her request. I also knew that her request was no different from a last will and testament. I was not a person so heartless that I could coldly reject those two things.
*****
The man woke from his contemplations.
No matter how much he rummaged through his memories, nothing surfaced regarding what kind of conversation they had shared after that. Although he could recall even the scent of the grass from the memory immediately preceding it, not a single word from the memory following it came to mind.
He thought that perhaps oblivion was something stronger than death itself. To think that it was this difficult to protect a memory.
******
Amidst the winter wind blowing while carrying the snow, he was looking down at a tombstone. That was what had caused him to be trapped in his contemplations for a brief moment, and when he knelt down and brushed the snow off the tombstone, her name was revealed.
The person who had engraved the name was him. The person who had placed her in the coffin was also him, and the person who had watched over her final moments and inherited the title was also him.
“······.”
Hilde died around the time that year’s summer was coming to an end. Just as everyone else he had formed a bond with had done, she became soil. And then, fifty-three springs passed. During that time, summer had visited many times, but a summer as long as that one never came again.
“You didn't care about things like kin at all.”
He placed his hand on the tombstone and smiled.
The reason she had passed the title to him was that she hoped he would not forget her. At the very least, as long as he remained the Lord of Ditmarschen and stayed in the manor where she was born, where she grew up, and where she died, he would not forget her.
He was that kind of person. And she knew him very well.
The time he spent with her was nothing more than a mere fleeting moment compared to the entirety of his life. It was a past that was bound to be forgotten someday. Because of that, or perhaps in spite of it, she had hoped to be remembered for a long time.
“Ulrichnim.”
The crunching sound of treading on snow drew closer.
“The day is cold. Please, let us go inside now.”
The man who was called Ulrich turned his head.
An old butler was standing behind him. His name was Hohenlohe. Hilde had taken a certain child as a page seven years before she died, and now that child had become an old man.
The butler was worrying for his master, but the person who truly needed to be worried about was the old man himself. His face, which had lost its color from the cold, and his weakly trembling body were like a gaunt thornbush. Once even he departed, there would be no one left who had served her.
Once all the people who shared memories with him vanished like this, and the day came when even the memories of her became blurred, he would leave. The promise went only that far. It had always been that way.
“Yes, I suppose I should.”
As he raised his body and left the cemetery, he thought of the old days.
He was born during the time when the gods created a palace in the sky and resided there. After the gods departed, he also saw the sight of the dwarves building a tower that reached the height of the heavens. There was also an era when the collapsed tower was covered in vines and was called the World Tree.
Today was a time when three eras had ended, and the era of humans had collapsed twice in succession before rising once more. Even though the world was undergoing such transformations, he still possessed the same appearance from those ancient days. Though it seemed his heart had changed many times. He himself did not know the specifics of that change. Because such a thing did not happen in a single moment, but rather took place very gradually.
He lived within the time that flowed past him day by day. Since even death evaded him, the only thing he could do was accept life.
Even so, he thought that life did not consist only of pain, and that even if it was sad to let go of a bond and be left alone, another bond was bound to find its way to him when the time was right. Some might say that death was a gift from the gods and immortality was a curse, but that was not necessarily the case.
His name was Ulrich, currently Ulrich of Ditmarschen.
One hundred years ago, he used the name Cesar de Guise, and in an even older time, he had also used the name Arturus Magnus. However, those were merely a portion of this man's numerous names. There was no need to know them right now.