Unfortunately, the other children reacted bluntly.
"You? You look like a boy, so there's no way you could!"
Back when she lived in Subura, she had worn her hair short and spoken and acted so roughly that they had thought she was a boy.
She had come outside, grown out her hair, and started wearing pretty jackets, but to those who had known her, it still seemed terribly awkward.
One of the boys openly scoffed at her.
"Ugh! No! The nun told me I was cute too!"
I smiled gently and patted the head of the kid insisting that she was cute.
At the same time, I gave the one who had been needling her a smack on the head.
"Ah! Why'd you hit me?!"
"You shouldn't say mean things to your friend."
"That's not even mean!"
"It is. It might be worse than a swear word."
Perhaps because he was from Subura, where talk of slitting bellies and severing limbs was commonplace?
He looked quite aggrieved, as if something like this was not even a curse.
Instead of getting angry at him, I patted the head I had struck.
At the same time, I picked up Julia, the child who had fought with him, and set her on my shoulder.
"You can't yet because you're young, but you'll be able to ride one too. You're so pretty and cute."
"Really?"
"But a pretty face alone won't be enough to ride one."
"Then what will?"
Before I knew it, the children's attention had shifted from the carriage to me.
Was it because of the Sword Saint's memories?
Whenever I saw children, I felt especially pleased, and I found I had much to say.
From the many words that came to mind, I carefully chose one.
"Your heart has to be pretty too. Do you think they'd let a child who only does mean things ride in a carriage like that?"
"I... don't think so."
Julia tilted her head, then nodded again.
The other children nodded along with her.
"You can do it. You can ride in that carriage, and you can become soldiers or knights who guard it."
"Uh... maybe a soldier, but a knight? Isn't that a little difficult?"
"Believe it. You can do anything and become anything. You don't need to decide already that you can't do this because of this, or that because of that."
I smiled at the children, who looked doubtful, and spoke firmly.
"Don't doubt it. Everyone is limitless."
It was something I said to the children, but also to myself.
Only a few months ago, I had done nothing but curse my troublesome leg and think that I could do nothing.
But now?
Having left my room, I had taken up a sword and become an Apprentice Adventurer.
I had grown stronger, had remarkable experiences, and was moving toward the future.
The inferiority complex within me had not disappeared, but I still knew.
If you have the will, if you don't break.
People could change.
They had to change.
Nothing was eternal, and everything in the world changed at every moment.
Thus, I told them of the insight I had gained from the teachings of the elder in the Starwind Flower field and the Sword Saint.
"So I hope you'll leap bravely into the future. I'll help too, as much as I can."
The children had escaped an earthly hell, but life would still be difficult.
There were few places for children to turn to and few people for them to rely on in Raechia.
Still.
May there be light on the path ahead of these children who had bravely leapt into an unfamiliar world.
With the vow that I would become a little of that light, I stroked Julia's pretty bobbed hair.
She did not seem to fully understand what my words meant.
But had she felt the goodwill they held?
She wrapped her arms around my neck, pressed her cheek to mine, and rubbed against it.
"I like you, big brother!"
Not only Julia, but the other little children crowded around me as well, grabbing at my waist and trouser legs and hanging from me.
In the midst of it all, Emilio wore a complicated expression.
Perhaps he had realized that he was no longer the children's only pillar?
I quietly beckoned to him.
Hoping that he, too, would become accustomed to leaning on someone.
Perhaps my feelings had reached him, for he came over quietly and embraced me.
Seeing me buried beneath the children, my parents' eyes grew moist.
"When did our son grow up so much? Isn't it time for him to find a good young lady and get married?"
"He's leaving next year. What marriage? Still, it's good to see."
"If only my boy could turn out half as well as Johan. He's so immature that it's a real worry."
"My daughter, too... Is it because all she learned from following her father was swordfighting? I worry because she's such a tomboy."
As the mood was about to grow a little heavy, Andrea's mother and my teacher stepped in.
After all, it was a festival, and everyone was supposed to be happy.
"Wouldn't Anna make a first-rate bride? It's hard to find a girl so beautiful and gentle."
The adults' social conversation—putting down their own children while praising others'—was heartwarming.
The friends themselves, however, merely pretended to vomit, saying it was embarrassingly sappy.
"It's good that Johan changed, but... sometimes I can't get used to it. He's gotten too cheesy."
"Isn't he embarrassed to say things like that?"
Knowing that this, too, was an affectionate expression, I merely smiled faintly.
In the warm atmosphere, the carriage had already passed far into the distance, and we walked along the main road.
We bought and tried on masks other than the ones we had brought, and instead of doughnuts, we bought chicken skewers and mussels from street stalls.
We listened to a bard singing by the roadside and clapped, and we bought baskets of flower petals and scattered them.
After making a large circuit, we returned once more to San Marco Square.
There, the Flight of the Celestial Maiden, the centerpiece of the festival, began.
When a woman dressed in the colorful, flowing garments of a celestial maiden appeared at the square's bell tower, Andrea, who had been pretending to be mature, was the first to marvel.
"Wow, is she coming down from there?"
As though his exclamation had been a signal, the celestial maiden moved without hesitation.
She stepped from the bell tower onto a rope stretched between several buildings.
Merely walking across it would have been difficult, but she occasionally sprang into the air from the rope and even performed somersaults.
Her billowing skirts traced lovely patterns through the air, drawing gasps of admiration from the crowd.
"Her sense of balance is crazy. She can do that? No, isn't she scared?"
Was it because she was learning a new swordsmanship that made use of her natural sense of balance and athletic ability?
Unlike Andrea, Anna focused on the fairy's posture and movements.
As she learned, listened, practiced, and improved like this, she would become a more dependable companion when we left together one day.
While each of us enjoyed the fairy's feat in our own way, the performance gradually drew to an end.
The fairy landed splendidly in the center of the square and raised both hands high.
The people filling the square raised their hands with her and shouted.
"Long live Raechia! May Raechia endure forever!"
"God, protect the Queen!"
Raechia, Queen of the Southern Seas.
Everyone there prayed that their beloved hometown would remain peaceful and happy in the days to come.
The adults, children, and my friends joined in as well.
They raised their hands high and their voices higher, shouting in their own ways.
In that moment, one that felt as though it would remain in my memory forever,
I alone neither raised my hand nor shouted.
There were people approaching us without a sound.
'There are five of them.'
At first, I thought they were merely people who had come to watch the performance.
But it was unmistakably us they were headed for—all of them wearing Exorcist Masks.
When one of them came close, he suddenly reached out toward Andrea.
I knocked his hand away with the self-defense cane I had carried with me ever since.
At the same time, I swept his legs out from under him, stepped on his chest, and thrust my cane forward to keep the rest at bay.
"URK!"
"Who are you?"
The Sword Saint's Mask had covered my face before I knew it.
The chilling murderous intent of an old man who had spent his entire life in a land of iron and blood settled over us.
No answer came.
I started to speculate about their identities, then stopped.
There was no point in speculating with no information.
Instead, I twisted the lips visible beneath the Lame Man Mask upward and spoke coldly to the group in Exorcist Masks.
With a cane lowered in one hand.
"If you won't answer, I'll force those mouths open."
“Ngh!! Cough, cough!"
As I provoked them by putting more force into the foot on the fallen man's chest, they responded by gripping the hilts at their waists.
As the group in Exorcist Masks and I faced each other,
Andrea prevented the situation from erupting.
"Johan, stop. They're my... uncles."
"What?"
At his troubled voice, I asked back, but he immediately strode toward the group in Exorcist Masks.
His face was filled with anger.
"Father clearly told you, didn't he? Not to approach me."
Had he sensed that something was amiss?
The leader of the group in Exorcist Masks removed his mask.
When Andrea was slightly startled by the grief etched on his exposed face,
the man delivered news like a bolt from the blue.
"The Capo—no, Father—is in critical condition."
Andrea's eyes widened as far as they possibly could.
The man who had delivered that unbelievable news spoke again, his face contorted like a demon's.
"It was an assassination."
At those brief words, Andrea's face went pale.
The others froze where they stood, apparently shocked as well.
Was it because I wore the Sword Saint's Mask?
At least I was not shocked by the situation itself.
I asked in a calm voice that could have sounded heartless.
"What happened to the culprit?"
At my question, the man Andrea had called uncle frowned.
Fortunately, Andrea quickly recovered from his shock and nodded, and the man answered despite his displeased expression.
"He is dead."
"Could you not take him alive?"
"That bastard... stabbed Capo and immediately killed himself. No, he was not in his right mind from the moment he stabbed him."
The answer was far too fragmentary.
I could not tell what had happened from this alone.
As I was about to ask more, I remembered that people who did not belong amid the reek of blood were here.
So, rather than ask about the course of events, I asked the most important thing first.
"I have heard the bare minimum of the circumstances, so I will ask just one more thing."
"What else are you going to ask at a time like this?"
"Can my friend trust you and go with you?"
Andrea was the boss's only son.
No matter what anyone said, that made him the strongest candidate to succeed him.
It also meant that if Andrea disappeared, someone else could become the boss.
I had no choice but to be wary of these people as well.
"Do you suspect me? An outsider?"
"A person need not be suspected, but the circumstances must be."
The man's face hardened at being suspected, while I faced him wearing the Sword Saint's Mask, cold as ice.
A grim pressure rose between us and clashed.
In an instant, the atmosphere turned frigid, as if the temperature had fallen by several degrees.
"Stop."
It was Andrea who stopped the situation just before it erupted.
Though he still looked confused, he grasped my shoulder and tried to dissuade me.
"I haven't been able to see him often for the past few years, but he cared for me a great deal when I was young."
"Andrea."
"He was like a real brother to my father, too. I don't want to suspect him. No, I trust him."
At his earnest voice, I sighed and stepped back.
It would have been strange for me to push the matter when the person concerned felt that way.
Instead, I looked straight at him and spoke.
"If that is what you want, I understand. But I am coming too."
"What?"
"Nothing is certain. I cannot send you alone."
He hesitated for a moment at my firm declaration.
But only for a moment. Perhaps realizing that I would not change my mind, he sighed and nodded.
"All right. Let's go together."
Just as we had promised to go together wherever the road led,
I stepped into Raechia's darkness with my friend.
In the heart of the happiest festival.