Even after meeting the children of Subura, my friends and I continued to live our daily lives.
At the dojo, Master and I pondered new swordsmanship and trained together.
Though the nature of our swordsmanship differed, Master was an experienced Swordsman.
Advice born from countless experiences was truly useful.
I also became close with the other children at the dojo.
Besides Anna and Andrea, whom I had been close with from the beginning, I had become close enough to call friends even those with whom I had once been a little distant.
Sword Saint Johan had told Johan, at fifteen, to live his spring.
To be honest, I did not really know what a person's spring was, or what it meant to live one's spring.
But I had a vague sense of it.
Enjoying the peace of the present.
That was how I thought one lived one's spring.
“Mr. Carlo, is it? This is a letter your daughter sent from Seyang.”
“Oh! Is that not Johan? I heard you became an Apprentice Adventurer. So you do work like this, too?”
“Haha, this is the kind of work Apprentice Adventurers do. Here you are.”
Today's spring was at Uncle Carlo's house, two canals away from my home.
When I knocked, Uncle Carlo came out and welcomed me.
The neighbors had now grown used to the son of the Jeong family, whom they had once rarely seen, running errands.
I handed Uncle Carlo the letter. After checking the envelope, he smiled and grumbled at the same time.
“That girl got married and did not contact me even once. Now, five years later, she sends me only one letter. Raising daughters is all for nothing, I tell you.”
“Haha, please do not be too disappointed. Big Sis Rosalia must have been very busy, even if she wanted to contact you.”
“If that were the case, she would have done so long ago. You must not treat your parents so coldly. Every bit of it drives a big nail into a parent's heart. A big nail.”
As Uncle Carlo tore open the envelope without hesitation and read its contents, he suddenly began to laugh.
“Hm? That… girl? Hahahaha!”
“What is it?”
“She says I have become a grandfather. Hahaha! Can you believe it? That careless Rosalia has given birth to a son.”
The letter held news as warm as the spring sun.
I happily congratulated Uncle Carlo, who now laughed heartily as if he had never grumbled.
“Wow! Congratulations! Are the baby and Big Sis all right?”
“Of course they are! She is asking me to come visit at the end of this year. That unfilial girl cannot come here herself, so she summons her old father?”
His words were blunt, but his face bloomed with smiles.
Seeing joy drip from every part of his expression made my heart swell as well.
Even when they were far apart and could not contact each other for a long time, the bond between parent and child could still run so deep.
So I made a decision as well.
Even if I left in search of a way to heal my leg, I would not forget to write to my parents.
Having made that vow, I said my goodbyes and stepped away, leaving Uncle Carlo to his happiness.
To return to the guild, I decided to ask a gondolier who was resting with her gondola moored in the canal.
“Hello! Are you taking passengers now?”
“Of course I am! You are going to the Adventurer's Guild, right?”
“Yes, please take me to the San Polo District.”
As befitted a boatwoman, she had terrifying muscles, and she held out a hand to me.
Understanding her at once, I took a silver coin from my pocket and handed it to her.
“Hm? Do you not have copper coins instead of a silver coin?”
“I do, but I only have eight.”
“Tsk, then just give me those. It would be a little embarrassing to take all of a child's money.”
“Thank you! Hup!”
The usual gondola fare was either one silver coin or ten copper coins, so I received a discount of two-tenths.
I greeted her happily, then twisted my body with precise timing to suit my inconvenient leg and settled onto the boat.
The boatwoman watched my strange landing and gave a warm smile before she began to row.
“So, are you going to report after completing another mission today?”
“Yes. I have just finished one.”
“You are working hard.”
“Hahaha! I spent so long rotting in my room that I was about to turn into mold. I have to work hard now, at least.”
As we chatted pleasantly, the gondola deftly made its way through the narrow canals.
Azure waterways and ivory-colored houses gleamed beautifully beneath the dazzling sunlight.
Flocks of white seagulls cut through the open sky.
Even the people in colorful clothes gathered at Café Florian, a city landmark my friends and I often visited.
It was a sight the Sword Saint, who had lived amid blood and iron, fire and resentment, had longed for his entire life but could never return to.
Thinking of the other sorrowful life within me made my heart feel strangely soft, when the boatwoman praised me.
“Oh, I wish my son would grow up as sensible as you. He does not even know how hard his mother works to earn money, and he whines for snacks every day.”
As I enjoyed this precious moment and talked with the boatwoman, my heart suddenly ached.
Children who did not even know what it meant to whine to their parents.
The children who had to grip swords at a young age and survive like wild animals suddenly came to mind.
How were they so different from the boatwoman's son?
When I thought about it, the only difference was that they had been unlucky enough to be born in Subura.
They had been unlucky enough to meet bad parents, or not to have parents at all.
Having thought that far, I suddenly shook the thoughts away and focused on my conversation with the boatwoman.
“…They only whine because their mother is dependable and someone they can rely on.”
There was nothing I could do for those children right now.
And it was not polite to think of other people while speaking with the boatwoman.
Perhaps my effort had worked.
The boatwoman's face brightened considerably as she rowed with vigor.
Before long, her complaints about her son had become proud boasts.
I smiled, adding the occasional response and sharing my own stories, and enjoyed the brief tour.
Before I knew it, the gondola had arrived at my destination.
“Thank you! Next time, I will pay the proper fare!”
“Forget that. Just listen to me well next time, too. I have not had this much fun working in a long time. I wish I had only customers like you.”
“Then I will pay properly and listen to you well, too!”
At my playful answer, the boatwoman laughed brightly like a girl. I said goodbye and headed straight for the guild.
I had safely delivered a letter carrying happy news, and the journey back had been pleasant as well.
Thinking it was a day somehow filled with good things, I opened the guild door and froze in place.
“This is….”
The guild members, who normally occupied separate tables and played around, were gathered together.
Their attention was fixed on children laid out atop a table.
It was the child I had clashed with briefly two weeks ago, along with another child who had stood beside him.
“Excuse me. Let me through for a moment.”
“What is this, you… Oh, Johan?”
Uncle Aldo had started to flare up at the hand that pushed him aside, but calmed down when he saw me.
Regardless, I examined the two children on the table.
Fortunately, Grandma Sujin was giving the children acupuncture and spooning herbal medicine into their mouths.
Their complexions were not bad, so I was relieved for the moment. Then Uncle Aldo asked me.
“They look like they came from Subura. Do you know them?”
“Yes. I told them to find me if they ever needed help.”
Knowing well what sort of place Subura was, Uncle Aldo asked solemnly.
In response, I deliberately answered dryly, as though it were nothing serious.
“Hey, you do not know this, but you should not help people from Subura lightly.”
“I know.”
“You know nothing. Do you think the Council leaves Subura alone for no reason?”
“So what?”
The Sword Saint's mask I had unconsciously put on.
The question I threw at Uncle Aldo in a barren, dry voice was sharp.
“Should we simply abandon the children? Or should we kill them and bury them somewhere? Pretend that we saw and heard nothing?”
“Ha, that is not what I mean….”
Uncle Aldo sighed and covered his face.
I knew why he was acting that way.
He was worrying about me because becoming involved would go beyond being troublesome and could become dangerous.
But his concern was pointed in the wrong direction.
The people an adult should be worried about were the unconscious children.
I was grateful that he cared about me, but I did not welcome him worrying only about me while the children lay collapsed.
As Uncle Aldo and I faced each other in tense opposition.
Something suddenly clutched my wrist, accompanied by a threadlike voice.
“Hel…p me. I am all right, so at least my sibling….”
The child had awakened at some point and was looking at me as he murmured desperately.
The moment I saw his eyes, I answered at once, without even considering it.
“All right.”
The words escaped me as if I were vowing never to let go of that hand reaching out in search of spring.
***
After Grandma Sujin busily gave acupuncture and prepared medicinal decoctions for the children, they returned to a stable condition.
Having handled the urgent matter, Grandma Sujin finally entrusted the children to other guild members and called me aside.
The second floor of the Adventurer's Guild. A quiet room where sunlight poured through the window.
Grandma Sujin sat in a rocking chair and looked out the window for a moment.
Then, as though throwing out a letter, she asked.
“You… told those children to find you, did you?”
The view outside the window was beautiful, but Grandma Sujin's expression was dark.
As if she could see the shadows hidden behind the magnificent sight.
Seeing her expression, I too suddenly felt afraid.
But I deliberately squared my shoulders further and answered in a firm voice.
“Yes.”
I had not done anything wrong.
No matter what anyone in the world said, that would not change.
Grandma Sujin saw the emotion on my face and sighed.
“Do you know what that means?”
“Subura… They say that one must not see or hear it. That I should think it does not exist, that it should not exist.”
It might have seemed that I had answered her with a riddle instead of a response.
But my words had already foretold the answer I was about to give.
“I cannot agree. Closing one's eyes does not stop an incoming arrow, and plugging one's nose does not make the rotting pus of a wound disappear.”
“Hah…. You are right.”
As though she were looking at something too radiant to behold directly.
As though she were touching something so fragile that it would break at her touch.
Grandma Sujin closed her eyes and carefully stroked my cheek.
It was a touch carrying so many meanings that I, still young, could not begin to guess at them.
“Johan, being upright is a virtue. In a cruel and inhumane world, it is a virtue that shines all the more.”
“Thank you.”
Though I thanked her aloud, inwardly I shook my head.
After seeing the children a moment ago, I had understood my own heart.
Why did I want to help them?
It was not a desire to pursue justice or benevolence.
I had merely felt a kinship with them.
I had been born a cripple, not as punishment for any wrong I had done, and yet I had to endure contempt and pity.
Likewise, the children had merely been born in Subura, yet they had to grow up like beasts without knowing love.
We were the same in that birth had become a curse, not a blessing.
That was why I could not ignore them.
Just as the Sword Saint had no choice but to help the Princess who did nothing but shed tears.
I, too, had no choice but to help the children.
As I thought that and stared quietly at her, Grandma Sujin sighed as though admonishing me.
“That is not praise. People are apt to reject what differs from themselves. Do you know why virtue is called virtue? Because righteous people are rare in this world.”
Tucking her golden hair, sparkling in the sunlight, behind her ear.
Grandma Sujin admonished me in a choked voice, as though lamenting.
“Righteous people are rare because they are trampled before they can even bloom. This time, you were careless.”
“If my carelessness saved a child who would have died, that is enough.”
“Do you still not understand? You must fight not only Subura, but Raechia, which has buried Subura beneath itself.”
I knew.
I had not known, but the Sword Saint, who had survived for so long and seen all manner of filthy things, knew.
That men of justice and chivalrous heroes who stuck their heads into the wrong places had short lives.
The Sword Saint in his youth would probably have only sneered at this and passed by.
He cared for nothing except healing his leg.
But even the Sword Saint had walked the Path of Carnage to save the Princess.
It was possible to ignore another person's tragic circumstances because they were, literally, someone else's problem.
If one thought of them as one's own problem, one could not do that.
I saw myself in the children.
So I could not pretend not to see them.
“Grandma, we are all people of Raechia. We are all people worthy of receiving the blessings of this beautiful hometown.”
It was the hand of an admirable child, bravely stretched out beyond the boundaries of the world in which he had been born and raised, asking for help.
Would I turn away the hand of a child who had accomplished something I could do only after gaining the Sword Saint's memories?
If I was too frightened even to do that, why had I taken up a sword at all?
I had no intention of holding a sword with the hand that had brushed aside the small hand of a child reaching out to be saved.
At least, I did not.
“No matter what you say, I have no intention of abandoning those children.”
“When you cannot even take care of yourself?”
“What matters is not my circumstances, but my heart? They say: First courage, second strength, third training.”
I countered Grandma Sujin's somewhat sharp words with a martial aphorism.
“They say courage is more important than strength or skill. Is helping people not the same?”
Without the will to fight, strength and skill meant nothing.
Without will, one would merely tremble or run away and die.
This matter was the same.
More important than my strength or wealth was the will to help the children.
That was what I thought.
Perhaps because my emotions had been stirred.
Having unknowingly spoken like the Sword Saint, I quietly looked at Grandma Sujin.
Together with the giant within my heart, who had fought the world for a single girl's teardrop and finally won.