Short Story 8: Pantile Defies All Vices 9
*
Shin quickly gave up on trying to see.
With his level of Physical Enhancement, no matter how much he strengthened his eyes, he couldn’t see much in the night forest.
In that case, just being able to make out shapes was good enough, Shin quickly decided.
“You damn—!”
Shin thrust his Sword into what seemed to be the neck of the four-legged Monster biting into his Flank, twisting it to sever the head.
Before he could even mend his broken ribs with Healing Magic, the Magic Tool Chako Candelight had given him flickered.
“Working me too hard!”
While grumbling, Shin admired Chako’s precise movements.
Currently, Shin and Chako were acting separately.
Chako moved ahead of Shin, splitting the pack into smaller groups, and Shin hunted down those divided groups.
Even though she was using traps set in the forest, Shin was genuinely impressed by Chako single-handedly managing the difficult task of splitting the pack and performing Delay tactics so they couldn’t regroup.
From Chako’s perspective, she would probably say that Shin, hunting down packs of Monsters alone even if they were split, was the abnormal one.
“Which way next?”
Checking the direction indicated by the Magic Tool, Shin touched his side to confirm his ribs had fused back together.
Ah, damn it, there’s a hole in my clothes.
No, that’s not right.
Worrying about clothes more than broken ribs was taking his penny-pinching nature too far.
Thinking something that would surely earn him a sarcastic, exasperated remark if Jenniferlin heard it, Shin took a short, deep breath and started running.
He couldn’t let them interfere with his friend’s precious time.
In other words, he just had to kill them all.
Shin Longdagger leaped towards the next group he found.
*
I saw the most beautiful thing in this world.
I saw the most precious thing in this world.
A small hand, still offered by a girl who traced the same emptiness.
The single step taken to continue walking towards the final destination is itself noble and beautiful.
If that is so, then is not the step taken by one whose feet are caught in mud (despair) the ultimate?
I saw that in her hand.
It was something I, who had stopped walking, did not possess.
It was something I, whose spirit was broken when the world told me “this is who you are,” could not do.
Was it because of youth?
The question was quickly answered through introspection.
That was likely the truth.
It was because of her youth that the girl could reach out her hand.
When I possessed that youth, there was no one I could reach out to.
Mine was a life where only the sensation of things slipping through my grasp remained in these hands.
If only there had been someone—another person—I could have reached out to back then.
The sweet fantasy brought pain; the sensation of the Armor-like layers of scabs peeling away made me aware of the unhealed wound beneath.
If only I, too, had had a Cokes Candelight.
Imagining that was my undoing.
I grasped the outstretched hand because, in truth, I clung to it.
If I could save this girl from ennui, if perhaps I could save the me of the past.
Ah, I would wager everything.
Finding meaning even in this life that felt so worthless it lacked any significance.
No matter what kind of world this girl’s eyes reflected.
I would struggle so that this girl could smile.
The single step taken towards the final destination is itself beautiful.
Cokes Candelight had found her final destination.
*
“My friend, Cokes Candelight, rests here.”
Feeling slightly embarrassed, Jenniferlin tried out her main choice for the Epitaph.
It was a rare, straightforward display of affection from her.
Feeling a bit shy, she couldn’t quite look Cokes in the face and averted her gaze.
What came back was the old woman’s sigh.
“Listen here, Pantile, that’s the kind of Epitaph someone with few friends comes up with, based on the delusion that their equally friendless acquaintance thinks ‘You don’t have many friends either, right? I’m your only friend, right?'”
Hau.
Jenniferlin swallowed a scream.
“Besides, someone decent enough to befriend a person who supposedly has no friends couldn’t possibly have few friends themselves. That kind of thing just makes the person who wrote the Epitaph regret it later when they see the number of attendees at the funeral, so just stop it.”
You’d really go that far?
Aware of her cheeks flushing, Jenniferlin attempted a rebuttal, knowing a harsh retort would likely follow.
“I do have friends, I do! I have Shin!”
Her tongue tripped over the words surprisingly badly.
“Oh, Pantile.”
Oh? What is it? What’s coming now? I’ll take it on! Bring on whatever words you’ve got!
Jenniferlin steeled herself.
“That’s right. When it comes to pals, quality beats quantity in the end. Cherish that boy—hey, what’s with that face?”
“Well, I was just expecting some sarcasm so cutting it would make me want to kill myself.”
Was her surprise that obvious? Jenniferlin touched her own cheek as she spoke.
“Oh, I have mountains of sarcasm reserved for that boy, mind you. Especially at his age, that is so messed up it leaves me speechless. What is he? How did he end up like that? If anything, being friends with that boy is the height of Pantile-ness.”
Heh heh heh, my friend is amazing, isn’t he, my friend.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
Jenniferlin looked up at Cokes’s exasperated voice.
That was a compliment just now, a compliment.
“No, really, Pantile, honestly.”
“And what about you, Candelight-dono? I bet yours will be quite the lively funeral, won’t it?”
A moment of silence.
Her friend suddenly wore a serious expression.
“One attendee is enough for me: you.”
You—!
Unable to look her directly in the face, Jenniferlin looked down, covering her face with one hand.
“This Epitaph is rejected! Absolutely not! Next! Next one!”
She waved her free hand, forcibly ending the topic.
What is it with them? Both Shin and Cokes, honestly, my friends are just, really… oh, my friends.
“What’s wrong? I’m speaking from the heart here.”
That’s what makes it so bad!
Grumbling internally, Jenniferlin drew a horizontal line on the paper.
Shin and Cokes were strangely similar in odd ways.
They were far too blunt with those close to them.
What is it? Are you natural-born Pantile killers?
Jenniferlin waited a moment for the sweat that had broken out to subside, then thought about the Epitaphs she hadn’t yet proposed.
Deliverer of hair growth tonic to the king… no, she’d said that one already. That had been good business.
“Ah—well then, how about: Herald of Lifespans, the kind one who informs those left behind so they have no regrets?”
Cokes gave a wry smile.
“I don’t recall ever using it so kindly.”
“Aren’t Epitaphs meant to be embellished?”
There’s a limit to embellishment.
Jenniferlin could sense the familiarity seeping into Cokes’s exasperated voice.
It was a feeling only the two of them, afflicted by the same disease (Skill), could understand.
Even Jenniferlin, though she felt she now held the reins of her Skill, had spent her youth being utterly controlled by it.
Come to think of it, she felt like they had recognized each other at first glance as people similarly ruled by their Skills.
Jenniferlin recalled having no hesitation in telling Cokes about her Skill, the greatest secret of the Pantiles.
In return, when Cokes told her about her own Skill, Jenniferlin had merely thought, Well, of course.
Jenniferlin pictured the time her father introduced her to Cokes.
Perhaps, at that moment, the reason she had reached out to this old woman was…
“Maybe I wanted to save you.”
The thought slipped out unintentionally.
“What… are you talking about?” the old woman asked, her pale face tinged with faint surprise.
“Ah, no, I was just talking about when we first met.”
A past she remembered well but couldn’t quite connect to her present self.
Hadn’t she thought something like this back then?
Guided only by a vague feeling, devoid of logic or consideration, Jenniferlin opened her mouth.
“I thought, ‘My, what a terribly lonely person.’ Lonelier even than a Pantile, who might have plenty of kin, allies, and enemies, but precious few friends. That’s what I thought.”
That’s why…
Continuing her words, Jenniferlin looked up at the dim ceiling as if recalling her past self.
“That’s why I wanted to be friends with you, wasn’t it?”
Having spun words purely from emotion, without meaning or direction, Jenniferlin snapped back to herself at the trembling breath she heard from the old woman and blushed furiously.
She’s going to make fun of me again.
Jenniferlin was aware of it herself.
It was Cokes Candelight who had saved her when she had grown weary and bored of a world made only of numbers.
Bracing herself for whatever sarcasm was coming next, Jenniferlin turned her gaze to Cokes.
Her hesitant demeanor was definitely not because she was embarrassed.
“Wait! My friend, what’s wrong?! Does it hurt somewhere?!”
Jenniferlin panicked greatly.
Because Cokes was covering her eyes with one hand, trembling.
It was absurdly late to be worrying about someone known to be dying, someone who would die today, but Jenniferlin couldn’t help but panic at the thought that her friend might be in pain.
“Ah… no, that’s not it.”
The old woman’s hoarse voice was filled with such serenity and gentleness that it bewildered Jenniferlin.
“So you were here after all.”
She couldn’t ask, “What do you mean?”
Because she realized that the Cokes Candelight was crying.
“It seems I had one too… a Jenniferlin Pantile.”
The moment her name was called, Jenniferlin impulsively grasped the old woman’s hand and gently placed her other hand on her back.
The old woman’s slightly trembling back was that of someone still trying to take one more step forward.
A proud, dear, precious step.
Jenniferlin found that step, the one leading to the final destination, unbearably dear.
“Pantile, you certainly took your time, didn’t you?”
What on earth could she mean by ‘late’? Jenniferlin gave a wry smile at Cokes’s incomprehensible, iniquitous complaint, and at her trembling voice.
Strangely enough, for some reason, she found herself thinking the same thing.
It was unlike Pantile, who was sharp when it came to business opportunities, skilled at swift decisions and jumping the gun.
Truly un-Pantile-like.
Ah, yes, that’s right.
My friend, I too regret being so late.
That step of Greed taken towards the final destination—that itself is precious and dear.
And Jenniferlin found that sad.