Volume 1 - CH 3

The boy’s visage froze stiff. Renier heard him take in a big breath. Once, twice, thrice. He didn’t reply no matter how long Renier waited, so she slowly repeated herself,

“Once you’ve fully recovered, I want you to rape me with your full strength.”

“…….”

“I’m going to resist you as hard as I can. I might fight back and say no or scream about how you’re hurting me, but I want you to cover my mouth with your hands, tie me up, and hit me as you rape me.”

“I don’t want to.”

The boy did not ask for an explanation this time as he calmly shook his head no. Renier grit her teeth and replied,

“What is it this time? Why not? You said that you’d do anything as long as it was in your capacity to do it. I thought that men were always willing to lie with a girl even if she’s just a baby.”

The boy’s face immediately became like a block of ice. His thick eyebrows furrowed heavily and his lips twitched for quite some time before finally, he sullenly spat out a reply.

“That’s not within my capacity. State another wish.”

“Gods damnit! Just forget it, then! Why do you keep asking me for more wishes when you keep telling me that you can’t or don’t want to fulfill them? I never asked you to repay the debt in the first place! I don’t need you to repay it, so just forget it!”

“…….”

“This is ridiculous. Are you against sleeping with a woman or something? Is it because you think I’m ugly? Or maybe you’ve never slept with a woman before? All menfolk rush at cows, pigs, and me like they’re starving or something, so how come you can’t even take the bread that I’m offering you for free?”

The embarrassment on the boy’s face boiled into fury. He didn’t even bother to hide the contempt he felt for Renier as he spat out,

“Do the women of the Southlands or the West not have any honor or shame? Is this how women like you behave toward men whom you’ve only just met?”

Renier stared at the boy for some time before she abruptly burst out in laughter. Honor? Shame? What are those? How fortunate is he for being able to say something like that? Haha, hahaha. Heh, ehehehe. She couldn’t stop laughing.

Yeah, sure, I know I just said something crazy. I’m desperate and feel like I’m going to die, but others will probably just think that I’m dishonorable and shameful.

She wasn’t ashamed. Everything was just funny to her, and everything was shit —it was all just hilarious, really. Renier laughed for a very long time. She laughed so hard that tears streamed down from her eyes. The boy’s visage only grew stiffer and stiffer the longer Renier laughed. Then, in a heavy voice, he spat out,

“I’ve met many people from the Southlands and the West……but I never seem to be able to wrap my head around you lot.”

“You don’t need to. Honor and shame don’t exist in my world, and it’s filled with things that you’ll never be able to understand.”

“…….”

“Just forget everything if you don’t want to do it. The only reason I saved you was because I was feeling whimsical this morning, so you don’t need to repay me or anything. I’ll be grateful as long as you don’t come to stab me in the back later. Besides, there are plenty of men other than you’d who’d be more than happy to have their way with a woman. The cave I’ve been staying at is brimming with them.”

The look on the boy’s face was so uncontrollably intimidating, and the contempt in his expression was so obvious that it was impossible to conceal. It was only then that Renier realized that her wish was a grave insult to him and that, should he accept it, he would regard it as a stain on his honor for the rest of his life.

But she didn’t feel like taking back her request either. Renier had neither honor nor shame, just as the boy had pointed out, nor did she have the time to help him understand the life she had lived until now. And then, in that very moment, she heard a grief-stricken voice say to her,

“I’ll do as you ask. If that is how I can repay you.”

***

Kuhn clenched his teeth as he held back a groan. His throat was burning, and he couldn’t sleep because his thigh hurt so much.

He could hear the woman breathing raggedly nearby. The woman who had saved him was sleeping in front of him to guard him, but it didn’t sound like she was well. She had been beaten severely by the grave robbers earlier.

……What do I do now?

The grave robbers realized that Kuhn was a Northlander much sooner than Renier had anticipated. Rather, they found out almost as soon as Kuhn stepped inside the cave. Not only did Northlanders look starkly different from Southlanders, but they spoke differently too.

The Southlanders’ speech was shrill and airy and fast, like the warbling of a partridge, in Kuhn’s ears. Which probably meant that his way of speaking probably sounded incredibly rough and crude, like the roaring of a bear or boar, in theirs. He probably sounded especially ridiculous to them because the people of Salt Mountain spoke particularly slowly.

And, unlike the people of the Northlands, who were concise and forthright with what they wanted to say, the people of the Southlands had a habit of going around and around in circles around what they actually wanted to say. Kuhn could never understand why the Southlanders spoke in such a tiresome manner, but he realized that they probably thought that Northlanders were simple and unlearned.

It was unquestioningly Kuhn’s fault that the grave robbers had figured it out so quickly. Kuhn was unaccustomed to lying, and he had unwittingly fallen silent when he had been instructed to swear by Utu, the sun god that the people of Salt Mountain worshiped, that he wasn’t a Northlander.

Kuhn’s father had been the chief of Salt City and the high priest of the Temple of Utu, and Kuhn was his father’s heir. Someone who was to be a priest could not swear upon the name of the god he was to serve and lie.

The grave robbers had grown suspicious of him, and they had asked him all sorts of questions, such as where he was from, who his father was, who the reigning king of the city was, and which god was worshiped at the great temple of the city. Kuhn knew next to nothing about the Southlands and was found out almost instantaneously, and that was when the bloody beatings had started. And the dishonorable woman standing next to him had immediately jumped in.

“Please don’t hit him! He’ll die if you keep hitting him!”

“That’s the point, you crazy brat! Were you planning on rescuing a Northlander? Are you planning to get the rest of us killed too? Why don’t you just die with him?! You motherfucking brats!”

The grave robbers inside the cave called the woman who had saved him a brat. Kuhn had thought that she was rather short when he had helped him walk, but it looked like she was fairly young too. He heard them punch and kick her. His insides churned as he listened to the woman being beaten. Then, she desperately yelled,

“I’ve saved you misters plenty of times too, haven’t I?! I was always the first to notice when the Northlander bastards were coming, and I always gave you a signal so you could escape! Can’t you look the other way for me just this once?! I said that I’d tie him up and keep an eye on him, didn’t I?”

“That was then! Quit running your mouth, you little brat!”

“Argh! He’ll die if you keep hitting him, so just hit me instead, ack! Shit! You’re actually hitting me. Argh!”

Renier had no choice but to stop the grave robbers from kicking Kuhn with her own body. She covered the idiot’s mouth so the blind fool wouldn’t argue back and make the grave robbers even angrier, and she planted her other hand on the floor as she took the kicks and punches with her back.

She thought that her insides might spill out of her mouth when she was kicked in the head. She’d thought that she was pretty resilient to physical pain because she’d been whipped so many times when she was younger, but it hurt so much that she was barely able to think straight.

Oh, shit, sure. I’m trying to save someone from death, so it’s only natural that it’s so hard that I feel like I might die. But still, this hurts like hell. Both of us might die at this rate.

“Shit! Calm down! Listen to me! Just listen to me for a minute!”

Renier finally began hitting back as she began to yell. The grave robbers had genuinely intended to kill as they kicked them, and Renier knew that she and the boy would die if she wasn’t able to find some kind of compromise.

“What’s even there to listen to? Don’t you know that the bastard will call the rest of them Northlanders here as soon as he leaves? Are you planning to wait until he’s shoved a pole up your asshole and hung you from it before you finally screw your head on straight?!”

“He doesn’t even know where we are. I made sure to blindfold him on our way here! And he doesn’t know what any of us look like either. I just have to watch over him and make sure he doesn’t run away.”

“What kind of sick game is that supposed to be?”

“Did you go insane, brat? What’s with you all of a sudden?”

“Gods damnit! Didn’t you hear me when I said that I’d take responsibility for him and keep an eye on him? I’ll chase him down and kill him myself if he tries to run. Have you ever seen me fail to hunt down my prey before? You’re free to kill me if I let him escape.”

Then, she clung to the legs of the bastard who was about to kick her again and started negotiating, saying,

“I’ll give you guys all the fruit wine I made last autumn if you let this go just this one time!”

“……What?”

The grave robber lowered his foot. Renier did not let this chance slip between her fingers and quickly added,

“And meat! I’ll give you all the meat I’ve saved up too. I’ll even give you all the meat that I hunt moving forward, even the partridges and hummingbirds —everything. You don’t know how much salted meat I’ve hidden away, do you? I have enough to feed everyone here for a full week —no, ten days!”

The kicking stopped abruptly.

“A-a week? Ten days? Are you serious?”

“Meat? You have that much meat?”

The thing that the people inside the cave needed most urgently was food. But not everyone knew how to hunt, and Renier was the best among those that did.

They knew that they wouldn’t survive the winter if they didn’t have enough food. It was because of gold fever that they hadn’t diligently stored up their food stocks during summer and autumn despite this. Their fortunes would immediately change for the better if they found a fist-sized divine stone today, or even tomorrow, so they failed to prepare properly for the winter because they were too busy mining for divine stones.

Moreover, winters tended to come suddenly in the Northlands. It would start to get a little chilly at the end of summer before the first snowfall began out of nowhere, and then it would suddenly be winter.

The grave robbers pulled back and huddled together to discuss amongst themselves. They’d always wondered what the brat who didn’t care about finding divine stones always did with his time while wandering around outside, and it turned out that he had been saving up on food. Furthermore, medicinal alcohol and fruit wine were just as precious as were divine stones around these parts.

They didn’t need to discuss for long. They simply had to hold the Northlander bastard hostage as they had their fill of meat and wine, and then they could simply kill the hostage off when spring came. The Northlander looked like he’d probably drop dead long before that, but the grave robbers could at least get their fill while he was still alive.

Then, Sedek, their acting leader, stepped forward. He hailed from Ninigal City in the Southlands, and he knew the most about the Northlands and was the largest and strongest inhabitant of the cave.

“Fine! Bring us meat in exchange for sparing that bastard. And bring it immediately tomorrow! The bastard dies if you don’t bring us everything you’ve got.”

“I can’t do that. Who’s to say that you won’t kill us the day after tomorrow after eating all of my meat? I’ll bring you a little bit every day.”

Renier resumed negotiations as she shook her head. Sedek made a menacing fist and swung it at Renier’s cheek, but Renier refused to budge even as blood dribbled down her nose. After all, she held at least half the advantage now that the grave robbers had been tempted by the prospect of meat.

The grave robbers eventually had no choice but to agree to Renier’s terms, and then they dragged Kuhn toward a small chamber in the back of the cave and pushed him inside. The divine stone mines were filled with wide chambers along the veins that budded out ever so slightly from the main caves, and newcomers often found themselves a small crack between the rocks or their own chamber and slept there on top of beds of wool.

Then, Sedek took the thick, three-ply rope of leather from the stone pillar and tied up Kuhn’s feet. Kuhn entered the chamber obediently without resisting, and then he lied down and curled up on the floor. He didn’t take off his blindfold even though his hands were free, nor did he try to untie the rope around his foot.

He gnashed his teeth audibly whenever he moved his wounded leg, but he didn’t even ask anyone to pull out the spearhead. No one inside the cave would pull it out even if he asked, much less help him stop the bleeding and treat him, and it wasn’t like he could pull it out himself either. Perhaps it was because he knew this that he simply curled into himself on the floor and quietly endured the pain.

“O-ouch, ow ow ow,”

Renier grumbled as she touched her puffy cheek. She couldn’t see well out of one eye because it was nearly swollen shut, and blood continued to dribble out from her nose. One of her molars from the upper right side of her mouth had fallen loose, and her arms and legs were all scratched and bloody too.

But she hadn’t broken any bones. That was enough for her. Her injuries were unlikely to get badly infected because it was winter, and most of the cuts and scrapes would heal once she put some spit on them.

But I’m not the problem here. The problem, is that the rascal whom I’ve barely just managed to save is lying there in a corner while barely reacting at all.

Renier crawled around the rocky cave and brought over the old straw mat she had been using as a bed and her dirty and blackened wool blanket.

“Kuhn? Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer even after she’d called him multiple times. Renier was frightened as she brought her face close to his mouth. She could just barely hear him breathing. And it was only then that she felt her heart settle down and she was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

People die so easily, but it’s so hard to save someone who’s dying.

“……You. W-what about you?”

A hoarse and stuffy voice filled Renier’s ear. His voice sounded horribly shaken. Renier scooted up close to him in alarm.

“Are you hurting? Are you feeling sick? What’s wrong?”

And then, she quickly shut her mouth. Of course he was hurting, and of course he was feeling sick. His leg was poisoned and beginning to fester. Weapons that were made from bluish or yellowish metal, unlike spears or arrows made from wood and stone, tended to spread a bluish black poison in the human body if it broke through skin.

She brought her hands to his cheeks. He had a fever. She brought her ear to his mouth once more to find that his breathing was rough and feverish.

What do I do? What do I do now?

Suddenly, Kuhn arduously reached up and grabbed Renier by the wrist. Renier took in a sharp breath. Her wrist was so hot that it felt like she was touching fire.

“Why……are you doing something so foolish?”

……This fucking asshole.

***

Kuhn began boiling with a fever as soon as his body melted. He had fallen into a coma during his first night inside the cave. And he had only continued to shiver horribly and vomit even as Renier kept a fire going and made sure he was drinking enough water.

“Ughh, ugh, hng.”

Kuhn was clutching tightly to Renier’s clothes. Renier let out a shaky breath. She’d thought he’d survive as long as she brought him here and kept him warm and fed, but it looked like she’d picked up once hell of a pain in the ass.

She knew what the problem was. It was the spearhead that was stabbed deeply into his thigh.

He’d die of blood loss if she pulled it out, and he’d die of poison if she didn’t. She could see that he’d die one way or the other after today.

She could hear the faint sounds of snoring. It was already past midnight, and it was now almost dawn. Renier was the only person present who wanted this child to live, and she was also the only person present who could save him and help him. Renier brought her lips close to the boy’s ear and whispered,

“Kuhn.”

“…….”

“Can you hear me, Kuhn?”

His eyebrows wriggled. His breath felt hotter than the small campfire that was next to her. She continued,

“I need to pull out the spearhead.”

Renier gently touched the broken part of the spearhead that was lodged inside his thigh. Kuhn writhed like he’d been struck by lightning, and he groaned through gritted teeth. Slowly, Renier repeated herself,

“Kuhn, I need to pull out the spearhead. I want to save you no matter what.”

His eyebrows wriggled once again. He squeezed Renier’s arm harder. Renier understood that he was terrified but was also doing his best not to let it show. She slowly brushed back the tangled mess of his dark, rust-colored hair.

“I want you to survive even if it’s hard. I want you to survive and live until you’re a hundred fifty years old.”

“…….”

“And if I could ask for one more thing, I’m also hoping that you’ll survive without having to cut off your leg.”

“Pull it out,”

he said tersely.

“I don’t have any herbs to stop the bleeding. There’s no doctor here either. I’ll have to use fire to burn away the poison and stop the bleeding. It probably won’t get infected because it’s winter, but it’s going to hurt a lot.”

“Do it. I’ll be all right.”

Kuhn quivered and gasped for air as he added,

“I…I’m a man of the Northlands. Don’t worry about me, and just do it.”

Renier grabbed Kuhn’s wrist and lowered her head. Don’t be ridiculous, you moron. Do you think you sound braver and stronger just because you say that you’re a man of the Northlands?

No. I’m the one who’s being ridiculous here. Why am I so desperate to save this moron when he has absolutely nothing to do with me?

It’d been because of guilt at first, the shallow impulse to do whatever it could to balance the scales before the Goddess Ereshkigal. But now, she simply wanted the rascal to live. She wanted to do everything she could to help him survive. Renier grabbed the boy’s hand tight as she choked up and whispered,

“Live, please live. You only have to make it through tonight, Kuhn.”

“Why are you……?”

She was glad that Kuhn had decided not to keep asking. Instead, his voice had stopped trembling ever so slightly as he said again,

“Pull it out.”

Renier ripped the cloth she had prepared on the floor into long strips, and then she rubbed the small knife she used for hunting on her clothes before she brought it to the fire. She took a fistful of straw and pushed it inside Kuhn’s mouth once she saw that the blade was turning red hot.

“Bear with it for just a moment.”

There was a long woolen kaunakes of good quality wrapped around Kuhn’s waist, and he was wearing plump wraps of wool around his legs to ward off the cold. His woolen clothes were terribly heavy because they were drenched with blood, and the blood had dried on the wool and made parts of it as sharp and hard as thorns that scratched his flesh.

Renier heard him draw in a sharp breath when she pried off his clothes. His chest heaved as he lie down. And Renier saw that his entire lower body was dyed red with blood from the wounds, so gruesome that she could hardly bare to keep looking at them, that were newly unveiled now that he was unclothed.

The bronze spearhead was wedged deep into his upper left thigh, and the area around his wound had already turned purplish all the way up to just below his groin. Kuhn felt Renier staring and turned his head to hoarsely and angrily say to her,

“……What are you looking at?”

“What am I looking at? What do you think I’m looking at? Do you actually have the leisure to be embarrassed right now?”

“I still clearly remember your dishonorable request. Just pull out the spearhead already.”

“You crazy asshole! Is that really what you’re thinking about right now? Do I have to wrench this thing out of you to get you to pull yourself together? Is that what it’ll take?”

Renier’s hands were trembling even as she cursed. I have to dig deep into his flesh and grab the end of the spearhead and pull it out in one go. He’ll end up dying from the pain if I don’t do this properly. In one go, swiftly.

One, two.

……Three!

“Mmph! Ugh!”

Kuhn writhed like he was having a seizure. Blackish blood and pus splattered all over Renier, and crimson blood gushed out afterward.

Kuhn opened his mouth wide, only for the lump of straw inside his mouth to drop into his throat. Mm, mmph, ugh. He was also pressing his hands over his mouth as Renier pressed his clothes against the blood that was gushing from his wound with all the strength she could muster. She saw his head turning this way and that as his limbs began trembling. It would’ve been so much easier for him to simply pass out, but the fool refused to.

“Stop squirming! Don’t move! You’re going to turn into a eunuch if I slip up while I’m searing your wound shut with fire because you’re moving around so much. Then you’ll never be able to get married even if you survive this, you asshole. Hey, damnit, seriously?! I said, don’t move!”

Renier was panting heavily as she squeezed out the rest of the pus and blackish blood before she began pressing down on the wound again. But the bleeding wouldn’t stop no matter how hard she pressed. The blood soaked through the dirty cloth and began flowing out from between her fingers.

“Ugh, damnit, w-why isn’t it stopping. Why?!”

Snot, tears, and cold sweat poured out from her as she muttered to herself. Renier bit her lips so hard that she drew blood as she wrapped her clothes around the heated knife. It was looking like she’d have to sear the wound with fire immediately.

Kuhn just barely managed to keep still as he gasped for breath. Renier didn’t give him any warning before she placed the red-hot steel directly on top of his wound and pressed down.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizz.

Kuhn’s mouth, which he had clenched shut, opened wide yet again, and he bent his back backward. But the boy didn’t make a single sound, as if he’d been prepared for the pain all along. The noises of something being scraped and the sizzling of his flesh as it melted mixed into each other as he scratched the stone floor with his fingers and desperately endured.

The wound finally stopped bleeding after it had been seared for quite some time. Renier flung the knife away and began to cry. The boy, who was writhing so hard it looked like he was having a seizure, clenched his teeth together hard and swallowed back his groans when he heard her crying. Renier swallowed back her sobs as she said,

“Don’t…you dare die. I’ll kill you myself if you die after all this —damnit, just don’t die. I’m begging you, please don’t die.”

He didn’t reply. His body twitched every time he exhaled. The blindfold over his eyes was drenched. Renier tied cloth around his leg as she hoarsely mumbled,

“……T-the bleeding’s stopped. Are you okay? Are you okay, Kuhn?”

Kuhn didn’t say a single word. His quivering hand swam through the air for a moment before he found Renier’s and pulled it toward him. Renier closed her eyes and desperately continued to mumble to herself.

Live, please survive this and live. Please just make it through the night. Make it through tomorrow night too and live for another year, ten years, and twenty years. Until you’re a hundred, two hundred years old, until you forget everything that’s happened today and you forget all about ever meeting an unlucky wench like me —please. Renier brought her hand to his cheek and continued sniffling for a very long time.

Kuhn’s ulnar bone was bulging. His blindfold was so drenched that it might begin to leak at any moment. His lips moved like he was trying to say something, but he couldn’t speak because the only noise that came from his throat was the sound of his gasping.

Drip.

A bead of water finally leaked from his blindfold and began trailing down his temple and toward his ear. Kuhn no longer seemed interested in turning his head to hide it. He continued to mutedly gasp for air and arduously swallow his saliva until the palm of Renier’s hand became drenched.

Kuhn’s hand gently fell on top of Renier’s drenched one and squeezed. Then, he carefully pulled her hand down from his cheek so that it rested on top of his lips.

Renier’s palm tickled for a moment.

But she could not understand the words that had been swallowed into her palm.