The Demonkin Girl and the Eccentric Hero

"You all right?"

It was a soft voice.

The girl, who had been crouched with her head in her hands, looked up, and could only stare, her eyes wide and uncomprehending.

She had no idea what had happened.

By the time she'd noticed, the adults who had been trying to kill her were gone, and at her feet lay the carcass of the four-legged monster they had sicced on her. Glancing fearfully about, what leapt into her vision was the figure of a single young man clad in blue-silver armor.

A chestnut-haired young man, looking down at her with a gentle expression.

She couldn't make sense of the hand he held out to her, and, as if trying to puzzle out its meaning, the girl timidly looked up at his face.

"Oh…? Don't tell me, you're a demonkin child…?"

The moment their eyes met, the young man's brown eyes went round and he murmured in surprise.

"…That's a shock. I was sure you were a human child who'd been carried off."

In that instant, the girl felt something prickle across her skin.

A human. And surely one of those very dangerous beings called [Heroes], at that. The kind of devils who slaughtered demonkin, cut off their fingers, and carried them away.

Forcing back her fear, she drew her brows together and glared at the young man defiantly. But the young man didn't seem particularly bothered by her wary look. As if to meet the eyes of this girl who looked ready to bite his throat out, he calmly crouched down where he stood.

"…!"

The girl tensed, her long, silver-shining hair rippling around her, and the young man peered into her eyes and muttered to himself in a tone with no tension in it at all.

"…First time I've ever seen one. Huh. So demonkin children have blue eyes. I hadn't spotted a single child since I came over here, so I'd assumed you people were born already grown. Or split off from each other, maybe. You know, sort of, ripppp."

"…Obviously not."

The girl couldn't help answering such an absurdly carefree remark.

"If you let a child out where people can see them, the others will kill it."

"Even though it's a child?"

At the young man's question, the girl blinked, puzzled.

"Huh? …I mean, children are weak and slow, so anyone can kill them, right? They're the perfect prey if you want to gouge out the core and feed on the magic."

This time it was the young man's turn to blink.

After a moment he shook his head, and in a voice full of disbelief he said,

"That's outrageous! Children are supposed to be protected. The weak are supposed to be sheltered!"

"Why should the weak be protected? The weak exist for the sake of the strong. The strong eat the weak and survive. Isn't that just how it works?"

At the girl's unhesitating words, the young man seemed to lose all his momentum. Knitting his brow, he let out a small, sorrowful sigh.

"I see… so among your kind, that's just normal."

Narrowing his deep-brown eyes as he gazed at her, the young man eventually asked,

"But, knowing they'll kill you, why are you here?"

"That's…"

Her blue eyes wavered, troubled, and she glanced down at the ring on her finger… and after a moment, haltingly, the girl said,

"…My mom's dying. My mom's really weak, and… I heard if you had the medicinal herbs from this forest, anything could be cured…"

"You're fond of your mother, aren't you."

"Fond…?"

The girl made a confused sound at a word she was hearing for the first time.

"What's that? I just want to be with my mom more. When I'm with her, it's warm deep in my chest, and… I can't really say it well, but I just want to be with her longer, that's al… eep!"

The demonkin girl, stumbling through her explanation, flinched at the sudden touch on her head. But when she timidly lifted her eyes, only her eyes, the face she found at the end of her gaze wore an awfully gentle smile.

Softly stroking her head, the young man narrowed his eyes and whispered,

"I'll help, too."

"Wha…… help…? You're a [Hero], aren't you? You came to slay us demonkin, didn't you?"

"I can't just leave a child in trouble. Especially a small, weak child."

The young man's gentle voice. The warmth in his eyes.

She was being touched by one of those terrifying [Heroes] who went around killing demonkin, and yet, why was it? It felt as comfortable as being with her mom.

She looked away in spite of herself, and as if to hide her own confusion, the girl muttered,

"…You're a weird one."

"Yes, I get that a lot."

He admitted it readily. And the strange [Hero] gave her a bright, beaming smile.

The [Hero]… that young man was, in truth, terrifyingly strong.

Demonkin came at them again and again, hunting the demonkin girl, hunting the human at her side. But every spell they unleashed dissolved into mist against the [Hero]'s armor, and whenever the [Hero] swung the sword in his hand, light flashed out under pressure, and the wounded demonkin would melt away with a parting curse.

"…You're amazing!"

At the girl's exclamation, the young man scratched his head, looking embarrassed.

"No, it's less my own strength than the strength of the magic items."

"Magic items?"

"Yes. We don't have strong magic the way you people do, so instead we came up with techniques to use what magic we do have more efficiently. Things like this sword. Or this armor."

The young man gently stroked the armor covering his body, smiling fondly.

"My little sister made it for me. I know it's a lot, coming from her big brother, but my sister's a genius at magic construction. Armor that absorbs demonkin magic, and a special magic syntax that pours that magic into the sword. …I'm being carried along well beyond my own ability, really."

"…I don't quite get it, but humans really do think up amazing things."

"It's because we're weak."

The reply came so easily the girl looked up despite herself.

"Humans think of all sorts of things because we're weak. We work things out. So you see, being weak isn't such a bad thing after all."

The girl blinked. Standing on her tiptoes, she stared hard at the [Hero]'s face, and then let out a small sigh.

"Humans really are amazing…"

With the [Hero]'s help, the girl made it safely to her destination.

Deep in the coniferous woods called the Ash-Black Forest, the girl gave a shout of joy when she spotted the comb-shaped leaves half-buried in the black soil. The hem of her clothes fluttering as she pattered over, she knelt down on the moss, and, heedless of the dirt under her nails, she clawed with both hands at the hard earth between the tangled tree roots.

When at last an orange root appeared, the girl looked up, her face bright with delight. Noticing the young man watching her, she gave him a proud, triumphant smile.

…And yet.

The girl, who had been cradling the herb so carefully in her small palm, froze without warning.

"Did something happen?"

The young man, taken aback, asked the question, and the girl quietly murmured,

"…I didn't make it in time."

And the herb she had been clutching so preciously only seconds before, the girl flung away into the dark forest depths.

A small clump vanishing without a sound into the layered branches and leaves of the dense woods.

"Why…"

As the young man muttered, dumbfounded, the girl carelessly pointed with a dirt-smudged finger at the ring on her other hand.

When the young man looked closely, the setting of the ring on her finger was empty, and only a few tiny shards of broken jewel still clung to the base.

"My mom's fate-stone broke. …Dad must've killed her. Probably because she wasn't useful anymore."

At the words, spun out so terribly quietly, so matter-of-factly, the young man couldn't help drawing a sharp breath.

But in contrast to the line that had left her mouth, the girl in front of him was deeply, eerily composed. At the utter emptiness in her voice, the young man eventually, hesitantly, asked,

"…You aren't going to cry?"

"Cry?"

Head still bowed, the girl echoed it back, sounding strangely puzzled.

"Why would I cry? It doesn't hurt, and I'm not injured or anything."

"Why, you ask… you wanted to be with your mother, didn't you? Aren't you sad?"

"Sad? What's that?"

Her voice was flat enough that the young man hearing it was the one who looked uncertain.

But on the girl's lifted face her brows were pulled tightly together, in defiance of her tone. Her blue eyes were welling up by slow degrees.

"…Is that… the feeling where your chest sort of squeezes tight? Where it's hard to breathe? Where there's a hollow space inside you, and something keeps spilling out of it…"

"……"

"…So humans even have a word for a feeling like this."

Humans really are amazing, after all, the small girl murmured, and the young man gazed at her steadily.

After a long silence, the young man quietly opened his mouth.

"…I'm sorry."

He whispered it, softly.

"…I'm sorry. Until now, I'd thought your kind, the demonkin, didn't have things like love or kindness, any of those feelings at all."

Love? Kindness?

The girl stood bewildered amid a flood of nameless feelings welling up inside her. And once again, the young man had spoken a concept she didn't know.

When she looked up reflexively, his eyes narrowed quietly.

"But I was wrong. You people have those feelings too. It's just that you haven't realized it yet…"

"You really are a good girl." With a tender smile, the young man gently stroked her head.

And before she knew it, fat tears were spilling from the girl's eyes.

Her mom wasn't anywhere anymore. She'd never see her mom again.

So this. This was what sad meant.

At the ache welling up from deep in her chest, her throat closed.

Enveloped by the sense of loss wrapping around her body, she let the tears pour out like a burst dam.

The young man watching over her had eyes of such deep color you could be drawn right into them. Just like the fate-stone her mom had given her, the girl thought.