Chapter 53 - Gilli

Bera went with Renée to find Friede. Renée had suggested asking directly about Friede’s relationship with the Noir.

Bera believed Friede would never tell them the truth, but Renée had smiled faintly at that and replied, "If Friede really is colluding with them, Friede will admit it."

A puzzling statement.

Yet Bera trusted Renée, who had opened his eyes. If she said so, she must have a sound reason.

With that thought, he approached Friede and asked without preamble.

"Do you know where the Noir’s base is?"

At the abrupt question, Friede blinked, then nodded.

"I do."

SHING

Bera drew his sword. Renée raised a hand to stop him. Until then, Friede merely watched the two of them.

Planting her cane with a tap, Renée stepped forward and asked Friede another question, her smile unchanged.

"Are you colluding with the Noir?"

"I am not."

Again, the answer came readily. Bera’s expression twisted sharply at Friede’s reply.

What was Friede playing at? That was the thought that came to him.

Tension filled Bera. Facing someone whose intentions he could not fathom stirred an equal measure of hostility.

The only reason he did not act more aggressively was Renée’s presence. She wore a serene expression, as though she knew something.

Hearing the reply, Renée realized her prediction had been right and continued questioning Friede.

"You don’t mind how things turn out here, do you, Friede? Whether Lady Aedrin’s essence is stolen, or all the Noir die."

From what she had observed of Friede, that was probably the case. Friede knew no emotion. All of this was simply one of the things that were meant to happen. The outcome of this conflict would hold no importance whatsoever to Friede.

Friede’s answer confirmed her conjecture.

"Hmm. You have quite a discerning eye, Saintess."

There was a hint of laughter in the words, yet they were as hollow as ever.

Renée felt the sadness that visited her whenever they spoke like this fill her once more.

She did not ask whether Friede truly felt nothing. To Friede, the question would be meaningless.

Instead, she asked something else.

"Which do you think is right, Friede?"

"Which what?"

"Lady Aedrin dying, or the Noir dying. Which of the two do you think is more right?"

She asked because she wanted to know where Friede’s reason led. She had a vague idea of the answer, but still wanted a definite response.

"Neither has any worth."

Friede gave precisely the answer Renée had expected.

Renée knew it too.

Neither side of this conflict was more right. There were only differing positions.

That was why both the elves and the Noir acted for what they themselves considered worthwhile.

Only Friede, devoid of emotion, stood apart from them like an isolated island.

"Then do you truly intend to do nothing, Friede?"

"Certainly not. My duty is to protect Mother from enemies invading the Great Forest. I shall carry out that duty until my last breath."

Friede said this with a gentle smile.

"Well, if Gilli kills me, my duty will end in failure."

It was a recital of the natural order as Friede understood it.

Even during this conversation, Friede studied Renée’s and Bera’s expressions, identifying their emotions and the reasons behind them.

On Bera’s face were irritation and anger. Perhaps he felt threatened by Friede’s refusal to take either side.

Friede understood that, then turned to studying Renée.

On Renée’s face were sadness and pity.

Friede...

'Why?'

Could not understand those.

Thoughts raced. To identify the cause of those emotions, Friede recalled every mechanism of behavior known to them, but could not discover where Renée’s feelings originated.

The thinking continued. Unable to find an exact fit, Friede substituted the elves for themself as the object of those feelings.

Then an answer emerged.

"Ah, you pity the elves."

Or so Friede thought.

"No."

Friede tilted their head. Before them, the blind Saintess named Renée turned her empty eyes toward them, holding their reflection in that emptiness as she continued.

"I pity you."

For the first time, the expression vanished from Friede’s face.

* * *

Friede’s movements had not stopped because of emotion. Absolutely not.

That was only natural. Friede knew no emotion, and so could have no emotional response to being told someone pitied them.

The reason Friede had frozen like this... if one had to use an analogy, it was the response of a machine that could not find an input value.

Friede could not feel emotions. But they could learn them.

Friede knew which words and actions elicited which emotions, and how to respond to them.

Thousands of years of accumulated experience made that possible.

Thus, Friede had never once questioned an emotion directed at them.

Every emotion could be understood through logic. There was always a clear reason behind its workings.

'Why?'

And so this was Friede’s first encounter with an emotion they could not understand.

Unable to say anything, Friede waited for Renée’s answer.

"Friede."

"Speak."

A smile touched Renée’s lips. It was a tiny smile, one that seemed liable to fade at any moment.

"I want to help the elves."

"So it seems."

"I want to help you too."

"..."

Once again, Friede could not reply.

Like a scholar yearning for the answer to an insoluble problem, Friede stretched their thinking further than ever before while studying Renée’s face.

At last, they managed a question.

"Why?"

"Do I need a reason?"

"How could there be no reason? Forgive me, but I am slow-witted. I need a clearer explanation."

"Hmm. I don’t know."

Friede’s fingertips twitched.

"I simply want to."

Friede thought that word, simply, was far too irresponsible.

What followed was something they had never said in their entire life, something they had never imagined they would utter.

"That cannot be a reason."

It was a rebuttal.

Something Friede had never offered before, never having felt the need.

Friede did not even realize that their own response was now illogical.

"You said you wanted to help the elves? Then why do you not think of helping the Noir? They too have convictions of their own, and are struggling to live. Why are you indifferent to them, Saintess?"

Renée considered the words for a moment before answering.

"I don’t believe in righteousness upheld through someone else’s sacrifice."

She stated the moral principle she believed in.

"A sacrifice is not righteous when the person being offered does not want it."

She stated the most self-evident moral principle.

"That isn’t righteous. And I don’t want to stand with those who aren’t righteous."

At her words, Friede added another question.

"Then am I righteous?"

"You aren’t."

"Then why do you wish to help me?"

"Because you aren’t evil either."

Friede’s expression began to crease faintly.

As it did, Renée spoke again.

"You haven’t become anything yet. I think you can become anything, Friede."

Friede could not understand.

Those words. Those emotions.

They could not understand anything Renée showed them.

Suddenly, something even Friede did not recognize began to sprout within them.

The wish Renée had made some time ago, that millet-sized seed of a miracle, germinated inside Friede.

It took root in the soil of questions.

It sprouted, nourished by the mounting confusion.

A brief rain upon a parched desert, a rain that had not even cooled its heat, had spurred its growth.

The fool who had known only dryness all their life, who did not even know they were parched, found that brief rain insufficient—that rain which had not even eased the dryness.

This thing turning their entire insides upside down ought rightly to be called an emotion.

The insoluble question, the thing that churned within them because no answer came despite their desire to know—the first emotion Friede had ever recognized...

"... Merely..."

Was thirst.

"For a reason like that?"

Friede was not satisfied.

An answer like that could not quench their thirst.

"Do you need more reasons?"

"I do. Do you realize? Even if we stop the Noir, we can do nothing for you, Saintess. Extinction awaits us in the end."

"I think it’s better than dying like this."

Renée said this, then deepened her smile and added,

"No one knows whether a miracle might happen and you might survive, do they?"

Unable to understand those words at all, Friede began belittling Renée’s motives through what they knew, as people so often do when confronted with something unfamiliar.

This was pretense. The failing of those who exalted themselves under a guise of goodwill.

Friede disparaged her in this way, but it still was not enough.

Amid confusion unlike anything they had experienced in their life, Friede lost the ability to control their expression. Thinking they had to strip away that pretense somehow, they spoke.

Their hand pointed toward the entrance to the Great Forest.

Friede did not even have the presence of mind to consider that Renée could not see it.

"Prove it. As it happens, Gilli is entering the Great Forest."

"... Gilli?"

"The Chief of the Noir."

Bera and Renée jolted.

Friede had sensed this for some time already, but had not mentioned it because of the confusion Renée’s words had caused.

With a face full of confusion, the face of an examiner demanding proof, Friede added,

"Now, if you truly wish to save the elves, Saintess, let us go stop Gilli together."

Friede hoped.

That Renée would grow frightened and flee.

That she would change her attitude and take to her heels.

Naturally...

"... Let’s hurry."

Friede’s wish did not come true.

* * *

At the rustling that accompanied every step, at the parched landscape of the Great Forest, Gilli let out a deep lament.

"It has all withered away."

The fertile land, the greenery that had seemed eternal—all had withered away.

Only these dying plants remained.

Gilli felt a pain burning within.

Why must it all wither away like this?

When they had done nothing wrong, why must it end here?

Why must the history of their siblings meet such a miserable end?

The burning pain became lament, and lament became anger.

Gilli felt tears flow as the current of emotion ate away at their entire body.

Gilli walked.

Through the land where, long ago, they had played with their siblings, gathered fruit together, gone hunting, and tended new plants.

Through the land where now only their siblings’ lonely spirits remained.

In Gilli’s wake, fallen leaves turned to ash drifted through the air.