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I followed his gaze and saw the rows of houses along either side of the path from the gate. There were twenty-four houses on the right-hand side and twenty-six on the left.
“My best guess is over a hundred people lived here—do you think?” I asked.
Judging by the size of the houses, they seemed too big for just one person. There were married couples and children—that was about the size they seemed to me. Then again, we’d have to look inside the houses to know for sure.
Zinal answered, “We can’t tell from size alone, but yeah, there may have been over a hundred people living here. But if that’s the case, this village is incredibly unusual.”
“Unusual, how?” I asked.
“Well, because it’s a secret village. Anyway, let’s look in the back of the village.”
Zinal’s answer left me with more questions, but I followed him anyway. Was it unusual for this village to contain a lot of people because it was off the map?
“Oh, look! There’re some houses over there, too,” I said.
We located seven smaller houses between some of the other ones.
“There sure are. Yeah, there’s too many houses for this to be a secret village,” Zinal said.
“Do you think a village this size could have stayed hidden?” Fische asked.
I gave them both an intrigued look. The large population seemed to be a point of curiosity, but why was that?
“How many people usually live in a secret village?” I asked.
Fische thought for a moment, then said, “About ten, if it’s a smaller one. Even the bigger villages only have about fifty people. Once you reach a hundred, it’s hard to stay hidden, so most people wouldn’t even consider it.”
Oh, so that’s why! The more people you have in one place, the more food they’ll need. And if it’s too hard to grow everything you need in the village, you’ll need to buy goods from the outside. And then, you wouldn’t be able to stay hidden anymore. Wait—
I looked up and around in a circle until I found the cliff we’d been standing on a little while earlier.
“Why do you think we see way more houses down here than we did from up there?” my father asked.
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t remember seeing this many.” When we were standing on the cliff, we could only see about half this number of houses.
“It’s probably illusion magic,” Zinal said.
I looked at him. Illusion magic? Illusion?!
“Remember how we felt like we passed through something on the way here?” Zinal asked me.
“Yes. It seemed like we were passing through an invisible wall.”
Zinal tousled my hair. I looked up at him in surprise and saw the mirthful smile on his face. “Attagirl. You always have a firm grasp of your surroundings.”
Er, it was so obvious, I think anyone would have noticed that…
“Lots of people wouldn’t have spotted it,” he assured me.
Whoa, really? But it felt so jarring.
“That was the boundary line of the illusion magic,” Zinal explained. “I’ll bet this village used to be perfectly hidden by the illusion spell, but the magic degraded over time and the village started to come back into view.”
Fische and my father nodded in agreement, but the looks on their faces were quite grim. It sounded very difficult to hide an entire village, especially one like this. It wasn’t exactly small.
“Can illusion magic be used by anyone?” I asked.
The men shook their heads.
“They probably used a magic item,” Zinal answered. “But I’ve never encountered a magic item that could cast such a wide-ranging illusion spell before.”
“That must be the church.”
I followed my father’s gaze to the biggest building in the village. The closer we got to it, the stranger I felt.
Come to think of it, the last time I went to a church, I was…five years old? I’ve only passed by them since.
The church was probably built sturdier than the other buildings, because it was in the best shape. Still, time had taken its toll on the building. The windows were broken, and the right side of the double doors was about to fall off its hinges.
“What’s that?”
I wasn’t sure what it was…but I felt like something was off. I stared hard at the church doors. Something was…missing?
“It’s missing the flower art,” my father remarked.
“Ah! That’s right, the flowers!”
Now I realized what was missing. All church doors had the same flower art on them, and the ones before my eyes had none.
“Wow, you’re right. That’s strange,” Zinal said.
Fische nodded in agreement.
I gave them a curious look. “Is there some symbolism behind the flowers?”
“Have you heard the story Genesis of the Church?” Zinal asked me. I shook my head. “I see. It goes like this: Long ago, a town was pummeled by a storm. The storm destroyed all the food, and many people starved to death. A nobleman who lived in that town used his own money to buy food and supplies from other villages and distributed them to the townsfolk. Many lives were lost, but many others survived thanks to the man’s heroics. The man was deeply revered, but one year after the big storm, he died of illness. Saddened by his death, the townsfolk buried him on a hill overlooking their town. The day after his burial, white flowers bloomed wildly around his grave, and the wind carried their petals all the way to the town. Believing the man was keeping their town safe, the townsfolk erected a building near his grave to honor him and to pray for everlasting peace in their town. That is the story we call Genesis of the Church.”
I’d never heard that story before.
“So the flowers on the church doors are the white flowers from the man’s grave,” I said.
“Yes, and they’re painted on the doors and walls inside the churches, too,” Zinal said.
I recalled a church I’d once seen in the distance. And even from that distance, I remembered the flowers, but I’d been too far away to figure out what kind of flowers they were.
Wait a minute—if I couldn’t remember the flowers, why would I think something was missing? But I did think about them, didn’t I? Yeah…on every church door, there’s flower art…but I’ve never seen any of it, have I? No, I haven’t. How could I, when I’ve been avoiding churches all my life? What’s going on? Are they memories from my past life? I feel like it’s something else…
“Want to go inside?” Zinal asked.
“Huh?!” I looked up with a start to see the door was open.
“Is this building gonna hold?” Fische asked, eyeing the walls worriedly.
“It should be fine. It’s sturdily built,” Zinal said, hitting the door with his hand. It did indeed look quite sturdy, considering it had been constructed who knows how long ago.
“What’s the plan?” Fische asked.
“Well…just satisfying our curiosity,” Zinal said.
Fische shrugged his shoulders. My father also looked eager to explore: His hand was already on the door, and he was peering inside.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
While the three men stood talking by the door, Sora cried out and slipped right by them. Look who’s the most eager of all.
“Whoa—Sora? We got passed by.”
“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”
“Pefu!”
Flame and Sol followed Sora into the church, while the rest of us watched in a daze.
“Ha ha, they beat us to it all right,” Zinal chuckled merrily as he stepped into the church with Fische following close behind.
“What do you want to do, Ivy?” my father asked. “If you’re scared, do you want me to wait outside with you?”
Okay, if I want to wait outside, my father will wait with me. But…I’m kind of curious, too.
“No, I’ll join you. I want to see what’s in there.”
I walked through the door Zinal opened to find the inside of the church was fairly well-kept. However, instead of flower art on the walls, there was a giant painting hanging directly opposite the front doors.
“That’s strange. Why is this church like this?” Zinal craned his neck as he inspected a chair.
“What’s wrong?” my father asked, eyeing the chair Zinal was touching.
“This chair… It’s still good.”
“Huh? But that’s…” My father examined the chair more closely. Then he frowned. “Since the houses are so run-down, it’s kind of creepy that these chairs are in such good shape.”
“The church doors did show the wear of time a little, but the walls are weirdly spotless.” There was a slight grimness in Fische’s eyes. “Isn’t this church a little too clean? Nothing’s broken, either. It’s like time stopped.”
Fische looked around the church in disgust, and my father’s sharp gaze followed suit.
“There also isn’t any dust.” I ran my finger along the chair, but no white powder came off.
“You’re right. I’ve never heard of a magic item that stops time, though,” Zinal said.
The other men nodded.
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
“Sora?”
I followed Sora’s voice to find the slime seated in front of the painting we’d seen when we first walked inside. I joined Sora and found Sol and Flame were also looking up at it.
“That’s a big painting, huh?”