[20] Chapter 4. The Land of Angels (1)
-So you’re saying you didn’t have a plan at first?
-I thought I would just live publishing a magazine in the private sector, wondering what would happen if I did this or that.
-You could have been a competitor to our magazine company.
-Haha, no way.
-What made you change your mind? As expected…
-I guess it’s true that when a person falls in love, they lose their composure.
-Oh my.
-I didn’t think about it. That in order to meet someone who entered the palace, I also had to enter the palace.
From an interview in the <Love Life of Famous People> corner of the 128th issue of the magazine “Rosentic,” which won first place in the list of most interesting magazines selected by the palace.
“This doesn’t seem right at all.”
“…”
Ilyas said after looking around the street, and Fernciana agreed with her silence. That was because the first thing they saw was a hinge store. All sorts of hinges were lined up on the stand, and passersby would pick them up if something caught their eye.
Fernciana looked around in slight confusion, but the street was just an ordinary scene of a typical village, and she couldn’t find any of the vague sense of kinship or bond she had briefly imagined.
Rather, people seemed to pay no attention to the two, who clearly didn’t belong, as if many outsiders came and went.
“The store owner didn’t seem to be lying…”
Ilyas murmured like that and glanced at Fernciana. The two, who had wandered for a moment on the street, had come into a secluded alley to avoid other passersby.
Fernciana seemed very flustered and had been brushing her ears since earlier. Her short, blue hair fluttered by her ears following her touch.
‘Did she originally have long hair?’
Her short, blue hair was a mess at the ends as if it had been cut clumsily. It seemed she had cut it to act as a boy. Then, did she initially have longer hair than this?
“Let me see that ointment for a moment.”
“Huh?”
“The store owner doesn’t seem to be lying, but this place definitely doesn’t seem right, so if we show them the item we have and ask around, there might be something we can find out.”
Because Fernciana looked up at him with sparkling golden eyes, Ilyas unknowingly raised his nose a little and then cleared his throat. Fernciana quickly opened her bag and handed him the ointment.
“First, apply it to yourself.”
However, Ilyas didn’t leave the alley and opened the lid of the ointment first. Fernciana was flustered but relentless. Fernciana declared defeat and applied the ointment to her neck and hands. Ilyas applied it to the back of her neck, which was not easily visible.
“I didn’t expect it to feel so unfamiliar… I was a bit taken aback.”
After applying the ointment, adjusting her collar, and coming back to the main street, Fernciana murmured. Ilyas shrugged his shoulders.
“If it could be approached this easily, that exclusivity wouldn’t be maintained.”
“Exclusivity?”
“Did I mention that you’re the only one I’ve seen whose hands become a mess just from holding a fork wrong?”
“…”
“For reference, I’ve never seen it in any literature either. So the fact that people with such rare characteristics even form a village-level community, yet there are no records left and nothing is known about that characteristic at all, means it’s an extremely closed-off place. It would be stranger if it could be easily found with a sentence like ‘It’s just a little south from here.'”
“Aha.”
Fernciana nodded with an “I see” expression, and Ilyas momentarily felt like he had become an encyclopedia where pressing a switch would give an answer, but he soon shook it off.
“Let’s go over there.”
“An inn?”
Ilyas pointed to a worn-out sign in the distance. It seemed to be an old inn. Fernciana nodded.
If it was an inn that had been operating for a long time and had seen the passage of time along with the people coming and going, there would be more information circulating.
*
“Ah, this… Among the passing guests, there was someone who brought something like this. Did you come to find that place?”
The old innkeeper was wearing glasses that made his eyes look like they were spinning if you stared at them. He looked at the ointment Ilyas held out for a long time, recognized it, and nodded. The owner chuckled.
“You need to find Deshidier, not Desidiera. You got the name of the village wrong.”
“Pardon?”
“The names are similar and it’s not too far, so it’s understandable to be confused.”
The innkeeper took out a heavy notebook from the shelf below the counter. It was a thick item with a leather cover. The innkeeper carefully opened it in the middle and flipped a few more pages back.
“The place you’re looking for is probably here. Deshidier.”
“Not Desidiera?”
“This area is named Desidiera because it’s near Deshidier. But no one knows that anymore.”
What the innkeeper showed them was a paper with an old map attached. The map meticulously depicted a small area, and further south, there was a small dot with “Deshidier” written next to it.
“But I’ve never heard of an outsider actually going to that village. Some young and foolish fellows wandered around a few times and made it there, but they ended up coming back empty-handed.”
Ilyas and Fernciana looked at the map with a thoughtful gaze. The old man turned it towards them to make it easier for them to see.
“Is Deshidier far from here?”
“It’s not that far. It takes two days on horseback.”
“…How long does it take to walk…?”
“Well, wouldn’t it take about six days or so?”
Two days on horseback and six days on foot was a distance they didn’t want to imagine at all. Ilyas was about to ask about transportation between the two regions with desperation and horror, but the innkeeper’s wife was faster.
“Even if you head that way, no one can enter that village, so it’s natural that there’s no transportation from here. We only know that it takes two days or so on horseback because the people from that village who come here say so.”
The innkeeper kindly answered, and having nothing more to ask, the two bought two chocolate cookies sold at the counter and left the old inn. They didn’t say anything for a long time.
“…”
“…”
The chocolate cookies had nuts inside, giving them a savory, crunchy taste. Fernciana didn’t open her mouth until she finished the large cookie that was the size of her palm.
“I told you I sold the horse.”
“…You did…”
Ilyas murmured desolately while looking at the half-eaten chocolate cookie. Fernciana divided Ilyas’s remaining chocolate cookie in half, shoved one piece into her own mouth and the other into Ilyas’s mouth, then dusted off her hands.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have money to buy a horse.”
“I don’t either.”
“Then we’ll have to walk.”
Fernciana concluded resolutely. Ilyas looked at Fernciana with a slightly tearful face, but Fernciana didn’t waver.
“Are we really walking?”
“Yeah.”
“They said it takes six days.”
“But what can we do? They said there are no carriages going back and forth, and we don’t have horses either.”
Fernciana was right. Having said that much, Fernciana scratched her cheek while looking at Ilyas’s face, which was clearly having a hard time.
Ilyas, who dealt with information, had physical strength close to that of a natural-born scholar. It was unreasonable to make him suffer that much. A six-day journey alone would be lonely, but she knew that Ilyas had come this far for her.
She thought that would be enough for her to gather strength even alone. So Fernciana was about to say that it was okay for him to turn back at this point. Just then, Ilyas made a dry face several times, took a deep breath in and out.
“There is a way to raise money, not completely absent.”
“Huh?”
“Money. There is a way to raise enough money to buy a horse.”
Fernciana’s eyes widened.
Ilyas bit his lip once and pointed to a sign far away, stuck to the ground. The wooden sign, engraved only with intaglio, was hanging at the entrance leading underground.
If you passed by, you wouldn’t notice it and miss it because it wasn’t eye-catching. Fernciana blinked.
“Over there? What kind of place is it?”
“A gambling den.”
Ilyas said. And Fernciana immediately smacked Ilyas on the back.