“Aaah! Aaaaaah!”
Oh, not at all! I understand…! Wait, are you reading my thoughts? C-Can you tell me your name?
But all I got was silence.
Okay, wow, I just got totally ignored! Or I guess you can’t actually hear me…
“This is my house. Or…so I call this little cave… We’ll go looking for someone to take care of you tomorrow, so hang tight until then, all right? Oh, you must be hungry. I’ve got some Kalupa milk. You want some?”
“Aaaah!”
I’ll have some! Please! I don’t know what a “Kalupa” is, but if it’s milk, it’s probably the best thing! You have no idea how hungry I am! I’ll never forget this, mister! You’re a lifesaver!
I flapped my little hands, begging for milk. Very baby-like of me, as it were.
“…B-But how do I feed you… Should it be cold? Or maybe I should heat it up, or… Wait, where did I put it again… Aaaah…!”
…I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but, erm… This guy’s really clumsy.
✦ ✦ ✦
♣♣♣
THE next day, the man disappeared after sunrise. In his place, some giant monster peered down into my ark. As I looked back with wide eyes, the beast spoke with the nice man’s voice, saying, “I’ll try rocking you a little…”
…No…way…
“Aaaah?!”
This black monster that makes the demon wolves from yesterday look tiny by comparison is supposed to be that handsome guy?! Who is this person?!
The fact was, though, he saved me. The monster closed its jaws around the handle of my ark and started walking. From my point of view, all I could see were its upper jaw fangs and cute whiskers.
The morning glow was just barely visible in the sky. We were off to look for someone who’d adopt me…which made sense. I was a baby, so I needed an adult to take care of me. I could only hope we’d find someone nice…
However, I still held on to a strong resistance to all this. I mean, I still recalled most of my past life, so I had my pride as an adult. And I felt it all too keenly here.
Think this through, damn it! Be realistic! I was a baby—a defenseless infant who couldn’t walk or talk on her own. I needed to throw my pride aside and choose life as a baby. After all, my alternative was to die a helpless baby…
“Uuu, aah…”
“What is it? You need to pee? Poo?”
The black monster noticed I’d gotten louder and carefully placed me down on the ground. Its big black nose sniffed my lower half carefully. The shame made me wish the ground would just swallow me up.
The nice man took off the cloth that served as my makeshift diaper yesterday, then tied a new one in its place, but…having that region sniffed was still embarrassing!
“…What is this stone, by the way? I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it some kind of pact stone?”
“Aah?”
“Oh, I mean the stone inside your room… Well, I guess you don’t understand.”
Can you really call this cradle my room? It feels kind of…off… But I guess this is my room, in a way… Also, what’s a pact stone?
Indeed, I’d no idea what any of this meant. But someday, I might need to know, so I begged him to explain.
“Aaah! Aaaah!”
“You want to know?”
“Aaah!”
“Pact stones are produced when some kind of contract or pact is sealed, as proof of the agreement. They hold no meaning for anyone except for those bound in the pact. To that end, I doubt this stone belongs to you. You’re far too little.”
Given what he’d told me, I doubted this was mine, too. I couldn’t recall anything that grand happening to me.
“But since you have it, it must mean your parents gave it to you with some kind of wish in mind… Perhaps the fact your voice reached my ears wasn’t a coincidence.”
…Really? Well, either way, you chose to come to my aid, and I’m grateful for that! I’ll repay you for this debt someday, I promise!
“Anyway, here we are. We should wait for someone to pass by. If you get hungry or need to go to the bathroom, let me know.”
“Aaah!”
Roger that, sir!
I really couldn’t express how grateful I was to this person. Normally, I’d at least go to the bathroom on my own if I could… And if I wasn’t a baby, I could at least work to earn my own meals!
Are there any jobs in the Amazon forest, though…?
“Aaaaah…”
Incidentally, all I could really do was look up, and my view was just the monster’s face and a lot of thick, green foliage. Which begged the question: just where exactly was I?
Isn’t this kind of weird, actually?
I ended up sort of just rolling with it, but the idea of this monster actually being the nice mister who helped me yesterday was odd…
Is he a man who can turn into a monster? Mm? Or a monster that can turn into a man? Huh? Which is it? Can people in the Amazon do that? Is this some kind of hunting technique? I mean, it doesn’t look like a disguise…
I looked at my small hands as they waved forward. I couldn’t exactly fool myself into thinking I was anything but a baby at this point. But even if I could accept this weird turn of events, there were plenty of other things that made no sense.
Like…where was I? What corner of the world was I in? Why did my parents leave me? And, practically speaking, sending a baby down a river was pretty much tantamount to killing them, right? Was I thrown away? But my mother and father looked so kind…
Mother had jewels on her. So she probably wasn’t hurting for money, but…maybe there was a famine? I mean, undeveloped regions don’t exactly have convenience stores or supermarkets… So maybe they sent me down the river, hoping someone in a city might pick me up?
But does the Amazon river even connect with any cities…?
I never visited the Amazon or felt really driven to look into the place… But apparently, there are telephone poles near the Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx, so for all I know, there could be surprisingly modernized cities even in places like this.
Aah…
It was odd. I had so much to think about, but the breeze was pleasant, and the scent of the foliage made me oddly sleepy…
Well, sleeping is part of a baby’s job description…
Sorry, mister…I’m…tapping out…
✦ ✦ ✦
♣♣♣
WHEN I woke up, I found myself looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling.
“Ah, she’s awake!”
“Ooooh!”
And this time, old men covered in bandages look down at me.
Uhh, mister, who did you leave me with?! I guess…they don’t look like bandits, but…
They were all injured, and some of them were wearing armor… I had no idea what group of folks I was left with.
“Stop gawking at the baby, you guys. You’ll scare it.”
“Sure, sure… Are you really gonna raise it, though, vice-captain?”
“Your wife and kid ran off on you, right? Ya sure you’re up for this? Maybe it’d be better off in De Marl’s Orphanage…”
“Nah, I’ll raise her. A Mythical Beast saved this kid. Something weird might happen if I leave her in De Marl.”
“Y-Yeah… At this point, Mythicals are pretty much more a legend on this continent…”
“I guess there’s still a few left…”
…Mythical Beasts? Legendary creatures? Like, the kind that shapeshifts between human and animal form… Wait, so that nice man wasn’t human, but a Mythical Beast?
All those questions were certainly on my mind, but more importantly, it seemed that the bearded man was going to raise me. They called him vice-captain, but I had no idea what group he was part of. All the people I could see were bandaged, so maybe it was a mercenary group?
Huuuuh?! Mercenaries?! What country is this?!
“…Gotta come up with a name for the kid first, though. What do we call it?”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A girl. Mm… A girl… A girl’s name…”
My name…
If nothing else, it looked like these bandaged people had their priorities straight, unlike those bandits from earlier… Albeit, they were still injured, so that was concerning.
Who are they?
Everyone seemed lost in thought as they tried to think of a name, which was a pretty funny scene, but…
“I know! How about Tinaris?” The bearded man suggested.
“Huh…?” One of the injured men groaned. “V-Vice-captain, you just added a letter to Tiaris’ name. You know, that dancer everyone likes from De Marl…”
“Agreed.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“Tia’s the best.”
The group seemed to be in agreement.
“Huuuh…?” The man who argued with the bearded man eyed them with surprise.
Huuuuuuh?!
“All right, it’s decided! Starting today, you’re Tinaris!”
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I broke into tears.
“Ah, she started bawling!”
“See! She doesn’t want you to name her after a dancer!”
“But it’s not the same name! It’s just inspired by it… Aah, okay, okay, just stop crying, okay?! H-Hey, how do you soothe a baby?!”
“Huh?! Forget having a kid, I’m not even married! How am I supposed to know?!”
“Maybe she wants milk? Or, uhh, maybe she needs to take a piss?”
“S-Stop the carriage!!!”