Pen and Paper Translations

Spending a night in a half-collapsed house couldn’t be called comfortable, but it wasn’t bad.

Because he could cling to Xion all night.

A bed would have made it better, but it was still better than being at the mansion in Audrit.

There, he had to wander around every morning to find Xion, but now, when he opened his eyes, Xion was standing right in front of his nose.

Blinking eyes that didn’t want to open, Reinhild watched Xion’s back as he prepared breakfast.

“Are you up, Rein?”

Without even turning around, he sensed Reinhild had woken. Xion set down what he was doing and came over.

When Xion brushed a light kiss to his cheek, Reinhild looped his arms around Xion’s neck and hung on as if he’d been waiting for it.

“Xiooon.”

“Yes, I’m right here.”

Even the gentle patting on his back… It was truly the perfect start to a day.

If they’d stayed in the city, they couldn’t have done this. It was good they came back.

After nuzzling in Xion’s arms for a good while, Reinhild got up.

Even with wind streaming through the gaps of the makeshift wall, breakfast eaten back home tasted better.

“Are you fixing the wall again today?”

“Yes. I need to fix wall and I need to relay the floor. I’ll have to make the bed tomorrow.”

“Then I—”

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

“Xion! We came to help. Open up.”

People with no thought, no sense.

Because they barged in before he could even say he’d help, Reinhild never got the words out.

He’d planned to quietly restore the fallen wall with Xion today.

‘Should I chase them out?’

While he was mulling over ways to drive them off, Xion came close and kissed his forehead, as if to soothe him.

His mood eased.

“Since others have come to help, that gives us time to make the bed.”

If they fixed the walls and even finished the bed, the restoration of the ruined house would be done.

Starting tomorrow, he could go back to the same peaceful routine with Xion. Reinhild decided to put his plan to expel the humans on hold.

He could monopolize Xion after sundown anyway. He could endure this much.

Reinhild stood in a corner of the main room and stared fixedly at Xion’s back as he worked.

“Ahem, ahem.”

Just then, some man sidled up to Reinhild and cleared his throat.

‘What is with this human?’

Is phlegm stuck in his throat?

Then he should go somewhere out of sight and deal with it. Why advertise it?

Whether Reinhild glowered curtly or not, the man held out a heavy pouch he’d brought.

“Freshly butchered pig today, it’s the tastiest cuts.”

So what? Is that a boast?

When Reinhild replied only by shooting him a look that said he was displeased, the man hastily added an explanation.

“It’s for you to eat with Xion.”

“Ah. Right.”

Only then did Reinhild accept the pork.

The man watching him flushed bright red.

‘Is he angry?’

He’d accepted it since it was for Xion, and the man got mad. It was unfathomable.

He knew, in broad strokes, that humans exchanged greetings when giving a gift.

He was probably reacting like this because Reinhild had skipped that greeting.

With a short sigh of contempt, Reinhild made an effort to observe human courtesies.

“We’ll eat it well.”

The man’s face reddened even more.

Now that he thought about it, he’d seen this face somewhere: the guy who’d stared and picked a fight the day they returned to Root.

He clearly had poor circulation; his face reddened instantly.

So this time, too, it wasn’t anger but an ailment.

Without a second thought, Reinhild stopped paying attention to the man and turned his head to find Xion.

Just then Xion was looking this way too, and their eyes met.

“Xion!”

Reinhild waved at Xion and beamed.

Xion’s face, set from the labor, brightened in tandem.

“This is bad!”

BANG!

A man slammed the door and rushed into the house.

Ugh, these humans.

They even interrupt when all he’s doing is meeting eyes with Xion. How could he not be annoyed?

Truly, the only answer in this world might be to wipe out the humans.

“Philip is about to leave the village!”

Philip, huh.

A name he didn’t know.

But news of a human disappearing was always welcome.

“What?”

“That can’t be. Is something going on with Philip?”

“Philip, leaving the village? I can’t believe it.”

“Does that mean the job passes to his boy?”

“It’s not just Philip. The whole family’s leaving together!”

“What? Then what are we supposed to do from now on?”

But the humans didn’t seem to think this was good news.

‘An important human?’

Reinhild had completely forgotten that the owner of the house they’d stayed in the previous night and Rebecca’s father was named Philip.

Why should he know?

Philip or Bilip, he couldn’t care less.

But Philip and his family leaving Root was a more serious problem than Reinhild thought.

Philip handled the distribution of the village’s crops to the outside.

The residents of Root, accustomed to set people doing set tasks, didn’t much like change.

A villager moving away was startling enough, but the bigger problem was that there’d be no one to distribute the crops going forward.

When it came time for Philip to retire, it was only natural that his son would take over. To leave the village with his whole family, putting all that behind…

It was bound to get serious.

“Why all of a sudden?”

“They say Rebecca suddenly left the village, so he’s gone to find her.”

“Rebecca?”

‘Rebecca?’

At the mention of a familiar name, Reinhild pricked up his ears.

“Wasn’t Rebecca here yesterday?”

“This morning, they woke up to find just a letter left—she’d vanished. Must’ve run off in the night. Wandering other towns must’ve put foolish ideas in her head, tch…”

“That girl Rebecca always wanted to go off to someplace bigger. In the end, she got her wish.”

“She was a strange one. Leaving this peaceful village only to commute a long way every day… Eh, a person who’ll leave is one who’ll leave.”

“You think you can find someone just because you go looking, when they’ve made up their mind to go?”

“Given she wrote down her destination, looks like Rebecca didn’t want to be apart from her family either. Philip probably wanted to persuade her to stay in the village. But if the kid’s already gone, what can you do? If you want to live together, you’ve no choice but to follow.”

“Enough talk, let’s go. No matter what, one of our own is leaving—how can we not say goodbye?”

The hullabaloo of humans poured out en masse.

Philip, huh.

Squeezing at a faint, flickering memory, he finally recalled.

Philip was Rebecca’s father’s name.

He’d even seen his face when he was at Rebecca’s house.

Vaguely, anyway.

‘So Rebecca left the village?’

Why hadn’t she said anything yesterday?

Of all humans, Rebecca was the one who had, by a mouse-hair, the most acquaintance with him aside from Xion or so he’d thought.

Humans were as lacking in loyalty as demons.

“Rein.”

As he watched the doorway the humans had filed through, Xion came over and gently drew him into his arms.

Just as Reinhild grinned and moved to hug him back, Xion whispered low by his ear:

“Ms. Rebecca has been cursed.”

“A curse?”

A curse? What was he suddenly talking about?

Reinhild blinked his big eyes at Xion.

Xion stroked his cheek slowly with a soft smile.

As if to soothe a startled Reinhild.

“Do you remember the curse that shatters all happiness?”

“Yeah.”

As if he could forget.

The basement he’d been about to enter to hide from the hero had been bound with a terrible curse that shattered happiness.

If Xion hadn’t helped, he would have gone in, none the wiser.

“Ms. Rebecca went in there.”

“Ah!”

Only then did Xion’s explanation make the situation click.

‘The basement Rebecca mentioned was our house’s basement.’

When she’d said there was a bloodstained sword in a basement, he’d naturally thought she meant the basement of her own house.

But it had been our basement.

He didn’t know when she’d gone down there, but Rebecca had descended and taken the curse, and so she was leaving Root as if driven out.

‘Will that Rebecca human be able to meet her family again?’

It will probably be hard. That’s how curses are.

If only she hadn’t gone into the basement, it would’ve been fine. She was truly an unlucky human.

“She went where she shouldn’t, and Ms. Rebecca’s happiness was broken.”

As he said it, Xion’s arms tightened a little.

Held so tight by Xion that it was hard to move, Reinhild lifted his arms just enough to hug Xion’s back.

Xion was uneasy.

He pitied the human made unhappy by the curse on his own house and at the same time feared the same might happen to him.

“You must not go in there, Rein.”

“Okay.”

Reinhild had not the slightest thought of going into the basement.

If his happiness broke, that would surely mean being separated from Xion.

He couldn’t break the happiness he’d finally gotten hold of.

Never.

But… wouldn’t it be okay to break the curse?