As Mary stood upright, praying in this hellish place, Blood watched her with a smile. Then chuckled grimly and closed his eyes.
“Phew. That will do it.”
“Great. Good job.”
“Only…” Her expression was dispirited. “How many days do you think breaking the canyon bridge is going to buy us?”
“Well, they’ve either gotta go around, set up some large-scale magic to reshape the terrain, or… the High King could ride some flying creature across, then make more troops on the other side. I’d say a few days at most.” Blood shrugged.
Mary responded with dejected silence.
“Yeah, we’re pretty much screwed unless we kill the High King.”
“I did hear Gus has something planned…” Mary said, not sounding hopeful.
Blood nodded. “You can bet it’ll be a one-way ticket, though. There won’t be coming back from it.” He paused and crossed his arms. “And you ain’t coming.”
“Well, that came from nowhere.” Mary rolled her eyes. “I’m a powerful asset for you, if I do say so myself.”
“I know that. But you’re still staying behind. I’m not having you dying. The thought makes me feel sick.” The red-haired man grimaced, as if he’d pictured it all too vividly.
The blonde priest gazed tenderly at him. “Why don’t you at least try adding, ‘Because I love you’?” she teased. “Women like that. Me, mainly.”
“A cheesy line like that? Do you want me to throw up?”
Mary gave a resigned laugh, her green eyes sparkling. “You really are impossible… All right, and what if I insist on coming?”
“I’ll send you back even if I have to punch your lights out first.” Blood’s voice was harsh and cold. He had clearly reached a firm decision. “Just so’s you know, I got permission from Old Gus for that already.”
“I see. There’s no use resisting, then.” Mary shrugged her shoulders.
“You’re pretty skilled, I’m not gonna lie, but you’re no match for the great Blood.”
“No, I’m not.”
They’d known each other for long enough. Something like that was obvious to the both of them.
“How about this, then?” Mary slowly extended her index and middle fingers. “If you leave me behind”—she rested her fingers against her neck like a blade—“I will kill myself on the spot with my own sword.” Her smile was blinding.
Blood’s expression froze. This was not a joking smile. It was deathly serious. “A-Are you—”
“Did you not hear me? I said, if I cannot stay with you, I will kill myself on the spot.” Still smiling, Mary walked up to Blood and looked up into his face. “You will take me with you, won’t you?” She tilted her head and smiled at him, awaiting an answer. The look was as adorable as it was firm.
Blood’s cheeks were drawn back into a horrible grimace. “So manipulative…”
“That’s women for you, Blood. You may be the strongest man there is, but a man can’t beat a woman. You had better get used to it.”
“What a raw deal.” Blood tilted his neck back and stared into the sky. “Never known anyone so stubborn. Dammit. Nice going, Blood, you caught yourself a nightmare in women’s clothing.”
“Oh? You haven’t made a single move on me and I’m already yours?”
“That’s men for you.” A sigh. “Hey… Mary.”
“What is it?” Mary tilted her head slightly to the side again.
Blood held the slender tips of Mary’s fingers in his rugged hands, and looked intensely into her green eyes. “If we make it back alive, let’s settle down somewhere and get married.”
She gave a refined and quiet giggle. “Gladly.”
“I’d like to find a place on a hill with a nice view or something. Somewhere quiet.”
“Oh, that sounds nice. I can imagine the pleasant breeze. Perhaps we could have a vegetable garden,” Mary laughed.
“And when our kid is born, we’ll get Old Gus to homeschool him.”
Another giggle. “I expect Old Gus won’t be happy about that. He’ll agree anyway, of course, he’ll just grumble about it.”
Both of them understood. The flames of their lives had almost burnt out.
“And if he’s a boy, I’m gonna teach him martial arts! He’ll have my fighting skills, plus Old Gus’s magic. He’ll be ultra-mega-strong, even stronger than me! Whaddaya think of that?!”
“I’m sure he will end up a very strong and intelligent person who has no idea how to function in human society.”
“Oof! That hurts…”
“It’ll have to be up to me to teach him all the little things he needs to know.”
They themselves understood better than anyone that they had no hope of returning alive. So this was a dream.
“But I’m sure our child will be adorable.”
“Yeah.”
Despite knowing that it would never come to pass, they grew something private inside their hearts. An earnest wish. A happiness that could have been. Something glimmering, something warm. Like young children, innocently laughing while making a castle out of colored building blocks, they built a small and idle dream.
“Oh, yes. What would you like to call him?”
“Already decided if he’s a boy.”
“It had better not be anything strange.”
“Would I do that? A long time ago, Old Gus gave me a lecture on the origins of names, you see.”
“And you took a liking to it back then?”
“Yeah. He’s our kid. Without any doubt, he’s gonna have a stubborn force of will.” Blood grinned. “So our boy is gonna be called ‘William.’ What do you think?” he asked, and Mary smiled back at him.
“That’s a nice name. I like it, too.”
Will. William. My boy.
As Mary hummed to herself, Blood started walking, her hand still held in his. The two set off toward death and destruction, leaving the building blocks of an ephemeral, naïve dream behind.
No one knew, then. That far away beyond their death, destruction, and years upon years of time, from the remnants of a gentle and glittering dream, there would rise the small, first cry of a child.
— The End —
Afterword
Hello. My name is Kanata Yanagino.
This is my first work. Though I’m sure it must have its defects, I put all my efforts into writing it. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.
The original idea for The Faraway Paladin came to me at the end of April 2015, approximately one year before this book would come out in Japan. It so happened that around that period, I had more free time than I knew what to do with, and I was filled with a sense of emptiness. I was having trouble getting into any books or games, and yet there was nothing else I wanted to do, either. I seem to recall my mind just being incredibly vacant.
Amid those lethargic and weary days, there was a person who dazzled me. He was one of my friends, a fellow tabletop roleplayer. He was an aspiring light novelist, and a few months prior, he’d decided to try to win a Rookie of the Year Award.
Tabletop roleplaying is a type of storytelling game played with a group of people sitting around a table. You make characters according to a set of rules, and use dice rolls and improv-style acting to create a tale as a group. By nature, it has a lot in common with fiction writing, so it’s not that uncommon to find aspiring novelists among lovers of tabletop roleplaying games. If I also include the people who once aspired to become novelists and no longer do, it should come to quite a high number.
But for that very reason, I also knew the fate of people who talked about wanting to become novelists and who started writing stories. I do wonder just how many of them were actually capable of writing enough words to fill one whole book, with the full story structure of introduction, development, climax, and conclusion. Of those who did, I wonder just how many of their stories were interesting enough to be lined up alongside commercial works?