After looping around the capital of Zieden, the caravan finally made its way inside. Of course, that was to clear out the three mountains blocking the city’s entrances. Removing the blockades was at the same time like pulling a blade away from their throat, and also showing how easily the elves were able to do such a thing.
That said, if I weren’t here, removing the mountains would have been quite a task for the caravan, and putting them back would be equally challenging. In order to make sure Zieden didn’t realize that, we cleared the mountains out as soon as possible.
However, I had no place in the negotiations that would follow. In fact, I wouldn’t even be present. That would require showing myself to the rulers of Zieden, which could have a negative impact on my life in the future. Airena had warned me of such, and suggested I not get involved. Instead, I would stay back and guard the caravan.
She wasn’t wrong, though. I preferred to travel alone across the continent, doing whatever struck my fancy. Making myself known to a bunch of politicians threatened that way of life. And never mind Airena herself, the other elves present wouldn’t be able to treat me like an equal in such an official setting. Even if I wasn’t discovered to be a high elf, the politicians might think I held incredible power among the elves and so begin to make my life miserable.
Sure, I’d have the option of simply leaving if I only had the spotlight within Zieden, but if the news got out to other countries, I would have to stay out away from the center of the continent for at least another two or three decades. I would have to wait until the political structure of the countries here went through enough generations to eventually forget about me.
That would unfortunately also result in me being forgotten by the people I wanted to remember me. Right now, the people I knew from the Yosogi school, like Shizuki and his children, were still probably alive and well. But after another thirty years, it wouldn’t be strange if everyone I knew was gone. That would be far too sad.
Someday, that would happen anyway. There was no stopping it. But that time didn’t have to be now, and it didn’t have to be in thirty years. I would be more than happy to put that off for another century or two.
Sitting around in the wagons doing nothing was a bit boring, though, so my thoughts turned to Win. I had the letters he’d left with Airena on hand, after all.
Win and I had parted ways...I guess it was about thirty years ago now. He would be sixty-two years old now, which put him in his midtwenties in human terms. There wasn’t much point in the comparison anymore, but by human standards, he would actually be older than me now.
Back when I was still staying at the dojo, I would get a letter from him every year or two. Sometimes it would take longer, but I imagined some messages had been lost along the way. Sending letters across long distances was actually quite difficult in this world. The price of sending them was steep, and there was no guarantee it would actually be successfully delivered.
On top of that, there was no way to learn if it had been delivered afterward. There was nothing stopping the courier from pocketing the money and discarding the letter at their earliest convenience. Even if they seriously intended to deliver the letter, they could be attacked by bandits or monsters on the journey. If they were sent by sea or were carried by multiple couriers, there was a chance it could get lost along the way. In this world, your only option was to send the letter off and hope.
The letters I had from Win were full of holes—in terms of details, anyway—and couldn’t tell me anything about where he was, or what he was doing. But it did tell me the most important thing of all: that he was still out there somewhere. That made me happier than anything.
South of the Great Pulha Woodlands, there was a bit of land before you reached the sea. It was small enough that no country had laid claim to it, but large enough to provide passage to the west of the continent. This empty land was called the Pulha Highway, allowing people to travel between the western and eastern sides of the forest.
Although it was called a highway, it didn’t actually have any maintained roads. The land was inhabited by those who loathed the idea of associating themselves with any state, as well as criminals and others with nowhere else to go, and was often stalked by monsters emerging from the Woodlands in search of food.
There were virtually no merchants willing to brave the trek across the Pulha Highway. Rather than risk going on foot, it was much faster and safer to go by ship. And yet, Win had apparently decided to take that route on his journey west. Was it to test himself, or to gain real combat experience before the trials he knew he would face?
It wasn’t a bad idea at all. Challenging the Great Woodlands themselves would have been too reckless, but he would likely be capable of handling any monsters that emerged onto the Highway.
Realistically speaking, there was far greater danger from the people who inhabited the land. They were far more cunning than any monster, and might go to any lengths to achieve their aims. For Win, who had yet to take another person’s life as far as I knew, it would be quite an ordeal. The letters he sent said nothing of the trials he faced in his crossing, nor how he overcame them. At any rate, he somehow made it through to the western side of the Woodlands.
By the way, apparently I had suffered from a small misconception about the makeup of the continent. The land immediately west of Pulha didn’t actually belong to the continent’s western region. Pulha was situated almost exactly in the center of the continent, so the land on both sides of it was considered to be the central region. I had assumed that the area I was familiar with was the entirety of the continent’s central region, but apparently there was about as much land to the west of Pulha as to the east.
However, the western side of the central region—for simplicity’s sake, the west-central region—seemed to have a mix of cultures from the actual western region and the east-central region of the continent. For example, the religion that held humans as supreme over all other races fought for dominance against the religion I was familiar with which worshipped the harvest god and declared all people to be equal as children of the earth. Each country ascribed to one of these religions, and their differences had led to wars between them.
It gave Win a chance to experience the culture of the continent’s western region before actually stepping foot in it. But even so, he continued west. He had avoided entering any human kingdoms on his journey, as the only nonhumans those countries permitted within their borders were slaves. Apparently there were even elves among the enslaved races there.
I imagined the techniques the old nobles of Ludoria had used to enslave elves had come from the West, then. The idea of missionaries from the West making their way into Ludoria and connecting with the nobles to establish a foothold here sounded too probable to ignore. What had Win thought about all these things?
However, after the point where he began avoiding the human kingdoms, more gaps appeared in his letters. After arriving in the West, he made friends with the beastfolk. I didn’t know the details, but apparently he had gotten involved in their war with the humans.
According to Win, the beastfolk divided themselves into the Horned Tribe, a group prioritizing knowledge, and the Fanged Tribe, those prioritizing warfare. Though my understanding of them was vague at best, perhaps it was something similar to the distinction between herbivores and carnivores.
Win’s first acquaintances in the West belonged to the Fanged Tribe. They—actually, Win referred to his acquaintance as “she,” so I supposed he had met a woman there—apparently covered themselves with the hides of animals, hid their faces behind masks, and fought with the ferocity of wild animals.
They possessed physical abilities far exceeding those of humans. But even so, they were apparently on the losing side of the war. This was due to the difference in numbers and equipment. One-on-one, the Fanged Tribe could easily overpower any humans. But when the humans fought in formation, clad in steel armor and armed with spears, the Fanged Tribe were all but powerless against them.
The heavy armor the humans wore meant they were quite slow, so even defeat rarely ended with the Fanged Tribe suffering heavy losses, but they were gradually losing ground and being enslaved by the encroaching armies.
Using metal weapons stolen from the humans, the beastfolk could easily overcome the steel armor, but the amount of weaponry they could realistically take from their opponents was far from enough to fight back on any sort of scale. And with the way they relied on physical strength to survive, they hadn’t developed the techniques and technologies needed to create those weapons for themselves.
But in their time of need, none other than Win appeared before them. Swooping in and rescuing the daughter of a powerful warrior among the Fanged Tribe, his exploits had overruled any demerit his half-human heritage might have earned him. And above all, he brought with him what they wanted most of all: the skills to craft weapons. Not only had it not come from humans, but it was something he had learned from the dwarves who were far superior as smiths.
I didn’t know Win’s current situation in the West, nor how he felt about anything that had happened there. His many letters left out the majority of details, describing only the events that happened in the broadest strokes. Shortly after, his letters omitted even these, containing only messages to say that he was still alive and doing well.
I imagined he was thoroughly embroiled in the war with the humans. Was he afraid of the letter falling into human hands, and thus leaking important information?
One thing he did include in his letters was the desire to have another match with me. Ah, I felt very much the same way. He was surely much stronger now than he had been, and would only grow stronger as time went on. An exchange of words and swordsmanship would be a far better vehicle for sharing our thoughts and feelings than letters could ever be.
Though as of yet, I had no idea when we’d get the chance.