Setting Off

 

Those who live long know much.

Those who travel know more.

— An Arab proverb

 

"Giltaaa, could you get thiiis?"

"You got it."

At Lufelle's call as she swung a massive log around, a blue colossus swooped through the air with a heavy beat of wings.

"He's really settled in, hasn't he…"

Nina murmured softly, watching the scene.

"It's already been seventy years since Gilta came to live with us."

Time truly flew. Most of the people currently living in Scarlet had known Gilta since the day they were born. Strange to think about.

Gilta normally lived on the mountain where Mother used to reside, but he came down to the village once or twice a week to help with odd jobs. Hauling heavy loads, demolishing things that were in the way, that sort of physical labor. Being a dragon, and a blue dragon at that, said to be an incarnation of destruction, he was perfectly suited for the work.

He'd earn his wages and buy whole livestock from the ranches to eat. Easier and tastier than hunting for himself, he said, and he seemed quite satisfied with the arrangement. These were livestock I'd spent over five hundred years cultivating, so naturally they were good. Their lineage predated Gilta himself, who was only three hundred years old.

"Whoa… Boss Fire Dragon. I didn't realize you were there?!"

Gilta, now quite fluent in our language, spotted me and fluttered down from atop a tall tower.

"Sorry about that. Didn't mean to startle you…"

"… You're kidding me."

He looked me over from head to toe and let out a sigh of what could only be called sheer admiration.

"Even this close and I still can't tell. You really are the Boss Fire Dragon, right? This ain't like before, where little miss Rin was disguised as you?"

"The genuine article. One look at this pathetic face and you'd know."

Nina squished my face from behind. Well, that method wouldn't actually expose one of Rin's transformations, though.

"Here. This should remove any doubt."

I pulled out my usual red coat and draped it over my shoulders.

"Right. No question about it, that's the real deal."

Gilta flinched, his expression pained.

I folded the coat down fold by fold until it shrank to a single small red scale. When I wrapped it in a cloth from my pocket, Gilta relaxed and let out a breath.

"So that's the power of civilization you've been talking about… Impressive stuff."

"Well, I wasn't the one who made it."

Dragon presence… or dragon aura, for short. The aura only dragons could sense, the way they detected others of their kind. Thirty years to find a way to identify it. Twenty years to figure out how to suppress it. Another twenty to condense it into a portable item like this.

Seventy years in the making: Innis's masterpiece.

"… Say, Gilta. What do you think of this village?"

"Weird village."

My question came out of nowhere, but Gilta didn't hesitate for a second.

"I ain't ever dealt with humans anywhere else. Not once. But even so, I can tell. This village is weird. Everyone in it's weird. Nobody bats an eye at a dragon, and they even have the gall to do business with me as equals. And there actually are monsters walking around who could take me on or worse. On top of all that, the place is so far beyond normal that even I can see it, and yet nobody here realizes."

Ouch. That stung. In truth, I didn't have a clear sense of just how unusual this village was either. I'd heard stories about other cities from the occasional traveler or immigrant, but none of it ever quite sank in.

"But, well… it ain't a bad place to be. Thought it was annoying at first. Using each other… 'cooperation,' is that what you call it?"

Dragons don't form groups, and they never combine their strength. Born with keen intellect and powerful bodies alike, a single dragon has no trouble living on its own.

And so they never lament their solitude, nor find relief in the company of others.

"The food humans make is damn good, and the tools come in handy. I used to look down on all of it, but turns out it ain't half bad."

But that didn't mean they were incapable of coexistence.

"And that food, curry or whatever it's called. No way you could get that anywhere else."

"Isn't that the truth."

I nodded with satisfaction at the words he'd let slip.

Ceramic plates crafted at the cutting edge of a pottery tradition stretching back unbroken to the Stone Age. Stewing within: Scarlet potatoes, Scarlet onions, and triangle bull meat, all products of the agriculture and animal husbandry that Rin, Luka, and others had cultivated. Slow-cooked in a great iron pot forged with the smelting techniques Sig had discovered and Innis refined. The assorted spices for seasoning had traveled from distant lands along the great highway that Lufelle and her people had developed.

Curry was, in a very real sense, the culmination of our thousand-plus years of effort.

Ideally, I'd like to create solid curry roux like they had in Japan, but that might take another two or three hundred years.

"… What do you think, Nina?"

"Seems fine to me."

The girl beside me nodded lightly. But the feelings beneath that casual response were surely anything but light.

"What're you two talking about?"

"Gilta."

I met the puzzled dragon's gaze and spoke.

"I'd like you to look after this village in my place."

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"Chryse, are you actually ready? Dawdle any longer and I'm leaving without you."

Nina gave Chryse's back an anxious pat.

"I'm fiiiine. I'm not a kid anymore, you know."

Chryse puffed out her cheeks as she slung her bag over her shoulder and pulled on her boots. It was her usual going-out bag, cute but not very spacious.

"What are you talking about? You're obviously still a kid."

Even as she said this, the backpack Nina wore looked about the size of a mountain. What on earth did she have in that thing?

"I think they're both about the same, honestly."

Rin chimed in, looking about ten years old today, easily the youngest-looking of the bunch.

"Rin, are you sure you'll be okay traveling that light?"

Yuuka tilted her head. What she carried was less a backpack and more a proper rucksack, a sturdy, well-constructed pack. Dependable as always, she'd no doubt prepared everything she needed and nothing she didn't.

"Yep. I always travel like this."

Rin, by contrast, was practically empty-handed. All she carried was the small satchel she always had on her, the one holding that red-covered book. She was the most seasoned traveler among us, so I wasn't worried.

"You sure that's enough for you too?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

My own luggage fell somewhere between Yuuka's and Chryse's. Not to brag, but I was fairly experienced with travel… Granted, that was from my previous life, making it memories from over a thousand years ago, but I liked to think my instincts hadn't dulled that much.

Nina, though, was clearly overpacking by any standard.

"Mentor!"

"Well, now. Did you all come to see us off?"

I turned toward the familiar sound of Ara's voice, and it wasn't just him.

Ara, Innis, Mel, Lufelle, Tia, Seek, Riti, Daidai and Usubeni, Raiza, Bell, Fie, Cress… nearly all of my former students had gathered.

"Are you truly… leaving?"

Ara's voice trembled, as though he might cry.

"I am. I'm counting on you to hold down the fort, Captain."

"Mentorrr…"

Lufelle was already half in tears.

"Don't make that face, Lufelle. It's not like we'll never see each other again."

She pressed her lips firmly together, then gave a small nod.

"MENTOOOOR!"

But then, as if a dam had burst, Mel charged straight at me.

I wasn't anywhere near sturdy enough to stay on my feet after a quadruped's full-body tackle, and she bowled me right over.

"I knew it, please don't gooo! Stay and be our Mentor foreveeer!"

"I-Innis… did you explain…?"

With her wailing face filling my entire field of vision, I reached for the one person who could rein her in.

"I did. Three times. And this is the result."

But Innis just shrugged. Three times…

"Mel, listen to me carefully."

I managed to pry her off and spoke slowly, as if to a child.

"We're just going on a little trip. We'll be back in less than a year."

Her tear-soaked black eyes blinked. Once. Twice.

"Oh, is THAT all? What a relieeeef!"

The very next instant, her tearful face transformed into a smile as radiant as a rainbow after rain.

"… Well, be careful out there. It's dangerous outside this village. And you're already slow on the uptake as it is, Mentor."

"Thank you, Tia. Yuuka and Rin are coming along too, so we'll be fine."

I smiled at the little fairy, her prickly words belying genuine concern.

"… I'm still worried, though. Will this village's healthcare really be okay without me…?"

"You'll be fine. We've been drilled by you for over two hundred years now."

But contrary to expectations, it was Nina who was worrying, and her apprentice doctors who were reassuring her.

"All right. Shall we get going?"

After we'd all taken our time saying goodbye, we shouldered our packs and began to walk.

"Chryse. Has the direction changed?"

"No. The light is pointing the same way it always has… far to the east."

I held up my staff and asked. Chryse gazed at it and answered.

A light that I couldn't see — that no one but Chryse could see.

This staff, carved from the wood of a grave marker tree. The fragment of a soul that dwelled within it.

Seen off by hundreds of beloved students—

The journey to find my first student had begun.