There were times when his missing right leg would ache—phantom pain, as they called it. It was the same burning pain as when that black fiend tore it off with its teeth. It had already been eight years since then, and in that time, he had grown weary of its ceaseless torment.
It was on one of those days that Belgrieve leaped up before daybreak from the burning sensation in a leg long gone. He held the remaining stump of his thigh for several agonizing minutes, which felt like hours to him, coated in a greasy, cold sweat until the pain finally subsided.
“Dammit...” He sighed, then got out of bed. He couldn’t possibly go back to sleep now.
Outside the window, a faint sliver of white loomed over the horizon. However, the stars were still out in all their glory, and the meager bit of light on high only made the whole world darker by comparison.
He carefully equipped the crude prosthetic he had left beside the bed, tapping it against the floor a few times to make sure it was properly affixed. By now he could walk without any difficulty. In fact, after the long period of rehabilitation he had gone through, he could even fight with a sword. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly reliable enough for him to return to his livelihood.
There were those in the world who called themselves adventurers. The weakest of the bunch would gather herbs and other raw materials, while those with a bit of skill under their belts would earn a living hunting beasts called fiends. It was a trade where one’s ability to put food on the table any given night depended on whatever tasks the guild was offering that day, but slaying a powerful foe could net an adventurer incredible wealth and fame.
In truth, it was far from steady work. Many jeered at them; it was seen as a trade for ruffians and failures who couldn’t hold a proper job. Even so, society could not function without them, and there was still an unending line of people who became adventurers anyways.
“Their lives are an adventure in and of itself,” someone once said, quite sarcastically. Yet that statement did contain a hint of truth. It was a life lived perpetually between pleasure and death. That was what it meant to be an adventurer.
It had been seven years since Belgrieve returned to his hometown—a rural village called Turnera. He was twenty-five now. Having lost his parents early, he had left for the capital city of Orphen at fifteen in the hopes of hitting it big and becoming the talk of Turnera. However, he had hardly been there two years before a fiend made off with everything below his right knee.
He tried taking up small jobs for a while—gathering herbs and the like—as he rehabilitated but ultimately returned home as the reality of the situation dawned on him. He had lived in the small village ever since, doing various jobs that mainly involved tending to the fields.
As he walked out of the house, the brisk, fresh air filled his lungs and the gentle breeze ruffled his short red hair. All around, he could hear chickens clucking. The early-bird farmers were already preparing for work, and the shepherds had unlatched their fences to herd their flocks to the green pastures outside the village where they could eat their fill. Goats and sheep bleated, boisterously walking as one living mass with sheepdogs energetically racing around them along the way.
Gradually, the world was illuminated by the rays of morning light over the distant mountain range.
He hadn’t walked far when he came across Kerry, a farmer, who was on the way to his fields. They were the same age, and had often played together when they were kids.
“Hey, Bell.” Kerry grinned. “Morning and all that.”
It bothered him a bit how feminine his nickname was, but Belgrieve had already given up on that front.
“Morning, Kerry. Looks like someone’s working hard.”
“You betcha. I was just about to plant some onions. How about lending a hand, eh?”
“Gladly—is what I’d like to say, but can it wait until tomorrow? Old Caiya has me booked to gather herbs today.”
“No problem, just thought I’d ask. But hey, you’re pretty busy yourself, aren’t you?”
“It’s nothing, really. Give me a call if there’s anything left to do tomorrow.”
“Ha ha ha, I might just take you up on that. Well’n, see ya.”
“Later,” Belgrieve said, and Kerry made off for the fields.
While Belgrieve had been a laughingstock when he first returned, he was now seen as a reliable member of the community. He would be the first to volunteer for the jobs no one wanted and would use his adventurer knowledge to pluck herbs and drive off fiends. He helped with the fields, too, and whenever he hunted, he would share his spoils with the village. At this point, the villagers saw him in a completely new light.
Using his morning walk to patrol the village, Belgrieve made sure there were no signs of fiends around. Then he returned to his house, practiced some with his sword, ate breakfast, packed lunch, and headed off to the mountains.
“It’s fall, all right...”
Once the sun had made its ascent, the sky was so vast and blue. The trees were in the midst of changing to reds and yellows, and it was as if the summer heat from just a month ago had been a dream. But this was no time to grow careless. If he let his guard down, it would be winter before he knew it.
He scanned the undergrowth and the vines coiling around the trees for their berries. One by one, the plants he was looking for filled his basket.
“Almea grass, rattan fruit, harvest-moon grass... Are the grapes in season yet?”
Belgrieve plucked one of the small wild grapes and plopped it into his mouth; it was sweet and sour. “Just right. The kids will love it.”
He hadn’t been asked to gather them but piled mountain grapes and akebia fruit over the herbs anyway.
Exploring the mountain was always dangerous work. Fiend encounters were a risk, of course, but even wild animals were a considerable threat to most humans. Lumberjacks did their work in the forests around the village but hesitated to venture into the mountain ranges beyond.
A former adventurer like Belgrieve could handle most fiends and beasts that inhabited these parts. He hadn’t missed a day of training since he returned. The loss of his right leg put him at a far cry from peak condition, but nothing that lived in these mountains could ever get the drop on him.
After having gathered his fill of herbs before the sun was at its peak, Belgrieve found a nice sunny spot to sit for lunch. It was a simple morsel of hard-baked bread and goat cheese, but the fruits he’d gathered elevated it to quite a delicacy.
He devoured the bread, washed it down with water from his flask, and took a deep breath. The autumn air was refreshing and invigorating; just a slight bit of rest was enough for him to fully recharge.
“All right, it looks like I can help Kerry today.” He’d found everything he was looking for earlier than expected and could be back in the village by evening.
It was around the time Belgrieve had stood and stretched that he heard a faint cry. He immediately reached for his sword, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the area. He could not sense any fiends. However, the cry was audible so long as he concentrated. It was the whimper of a baby.
“This deep in the mountains?” he warily muttered to himself.
There were fiends called pixies who mimicked babies’ voices. While not strong, per se, they were an ill-natured sort who would use trickery and magic to mess with a weary traveler’s sense of direction.
Belgrieve had been to these mountains so many times he considered them his own backyard and had never encountered any pixies there before—but nothing was lost in being cautious. Keeping his hand on his hilt, he slowly made for the direction of the voice.
After parting the thicket, what he found left him almost at a loss for words. “Well I’ll be...”
It was no pixie; it was none other than a human baby, lying in a basket woven from wisteria vines. It was wailing, perhaps from an empty stomach. As a matter of fact, with the amount of sound it was making, it was a miracle a wild beast hadn’t gotten to it first. At this time of year, the mountains housed wild dogs, wolves, and bears gorging themselves for winter.
Belgrieve approached and observed the baby carefully. Its hair was black, rather rare in these parts. When he picked it up, it stopped crying and stared back at him with its wide, black-colored eyes. He could almost see his own reflection in those bleary pupils.
He scowled. Who could have left it here? It was always big news in Turnera whenever a child was born or was going to be born. The baby’s ears were not pointed, so it wasn’t an elf. So who was the parent who came all the way out here to abandon their baby? No amount of rumination could lead him to an answer.
“What now...?”
He hesitated for a moment. However, seeing the baby become so calm and relieved as he cradled it in his arms, he felt as though he couldn’t just leave it be—especially not with the trust reflected in its eyes.
Belgrieve gently stroked the baby’s head. It started to doze off, feeling entirely at peace.
The bottom of the basket was layered several times over with old rags and dried herbs that were said to keep evil at bay. It seemed the child wasn’t abandoned out of hatred or neglect.
“Fine.” He sighed. “Don’t really got a choice, do I?”
When Belgrieve descended that mountain, he was laden with a new basket and a baby.