She told me she had lived with her grandfather ever since she was little, just the two of them. Ashley’s mother had passed away soon after she was born. Her father was an adventurer who was hardly ever home, she said.
Ashley’s greatest joy was hearing the adventure stories from her father when he came home every few months, plus her training with the bow.
Her father returned home from time to time, always showing up out of the blue, without any notice or warning. He told Ashley about things he had seen and heard as he traveled the world. Stories about strange people he had encountered at his destinations. Stories about strange countries he had come across. Tales of business failures.
The various stories her father told her in the breaks between archery lessons were one of the few pleasures she had, living out in the remote countryside.
The tale of the goddesses was one of those stories her father told her.
“In this world, there are legendary birds that are called goddesses. Do you know about them, Ashley?”
“I do know about them! They’re terrifying birds that breathe fire if you get close to them, right?”
“Heh-heh-heh, Ashley. The truth is, that is not the true form of the goddesses.”
Her father spoke to her in a teasing tone. The girl took the bait and tilted her head in puzzlement. “Huh? What do you mean?”
Her father lowered his voice like it was a secret they couldn’t let anyone else hear and continued telling her about them.
“In the regions around here, people say they’re dangerous birds, but the goddesses are really very beautiful creatures—”
The feathers of their wings contained extremely powerful magical energy, and just touching one could instantly heal any illness. Their claws were blades that could cut through anything, and if their tears fell to the ground, they transformed into precious gemstones that concealed special powers.
Her father told her such a far-fetched tale.
They sounded like incredibly fascinating birds.
“Do birds like that really exist?” asked the young Ashley.
Her father nodded. “Your father is traveling in order to meet those goddesses. So I’ll be in trouble if they don’t exist,” he said.
Then her father leaned in close to Ashley again and showed her a single gemstone. “This absolutely has to be our secret.”
It was a radiant dark blue jewel.
“This is proof that the goddesses really exist.”
The jewel was what’s known as a goddess tear.
It was not especially beautiful, and it had a dull shine to it. But the gem had a curious appeal, and the sight of it seemed mysteriously etched into her memory.
After that, her father set off on his travels again.
That day was a turning point, and her father never came back home again. Never, despite years and years elapsing. Her father, the adventurer, returned home no more.
The days spent waiting for her father’s return were heartbreaking for the girl.
“Ashley. You mustn’t turn out like him.”
The girl’s grandfather seemed prejudiced against his adventurous son. As long as she could remember, whenever her father came home, he always got into an argument with her grandfather. They certainly seemed to be on bad terms.
“Abandoning your young daughter to roam about looking for birds that don’t even exist is something only a fool would do. Being an adventurer or whatever you call it isn’t something a decent person does. That’s not the kind of parent you should be. Are you listening? You need to grow up already.”
He must have talked to his son like that because they were on bad terms.
The girl adored her father.
Daily, she was troubled by the many cruel words her grandfather had for him.
The girl wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and become an adventurer herself. As she became an adult, she honed the archery skills she had learned from her father at a young age.
Naturally, her grandfather, who was prejudiced against adventurers, vehemently opposed what she was doing.
“You moron! You should know better after I told you so many times! Don’t go becoming an adventurer! There’s no such thing as a goddess!”
Her grandfather told her over and over again to cut it out and wake up to reality.
At first, she shrank back every time he told her off.
Once she got used to it, she started arguing. “No way!”
Eventually, she started answering him with stronger words like “Shut up!”
Her skill with the bow improved with every full moon, and she progressed until it was said that there was no one in her hometown who could measure up to her. If she had that much strength, then surely she could handle being an adventurer.
Even so, her grandfather stubbornly refused to approve of her dreams.
“You can get along fine right here! Give up on chasing after some meaningless story and stop wasting your life!”
“I’m the one who will decide whether or not it has meaning! I told you to shut up!”
Before she knew it, Ashley was quarrelling with her grandfather almost every day. Her grandfather seemed to really hate adventurers. Or maybe he really hated the idea of Ashley leaving home and couldn’t stand to face the thought. Even when she just went out for a little while, even if she was just going into the mountains to hunt, her grandfather started butting in to say “Don’t become an adventurer” or “Adventuring is a bad idea.” At that point, his reactions almost seemed pathological.
Why did he despise adventurers so much?
Ashley whiled away her days in her hometown, harboring gloomy feelings.
And then one day—
She entered the family storehouse in order to organize her father’s belongings, who had been gone for so long and still had not returned.
She wondered when on earth he was going to come back home. She pondered how long it had been since he’d been back.
His many bags were covered in ancient dust. He had not come for them, no matter how much time had passed. As a way of remembering her father, Ashley put his things in order.
There were only a few items she had seen before. The majority of it she didn’t remember seeing. Undoubtedly, the stories her father had told her had only covered a small fraction of his adventures across many years. She found dangerous weapons and mysterious tomes. The storehouse was overflowing with things she had never laid eyes on before.
“My dad sure is amazing…”
Her eyes lit up at the evidence of stories that she had never been told from her father’s mouth.
“…?”
And then—
—among it all, one peculiar item stood out.
A dark blue gemstone that gave off a dull shine.
It was the proof that goddesses really existed, proof that her father had carried with him before. She was sure that nothing could have been more precious to her father, who had spent many years chasing the goddesses. She wondered what on earth it was doing there in the storehouse, covered in dust.
“Just what is going on here?”
Ashley immediately showed the jewel to her grandfather.
“What’s that stone?”
Ashley’s grandfather cocked his head and pretended not to recognize it. She wondered whether he really didn’t know. She couldn’t deny that possibility.
But there was another possibility swirling around in Ashley’s mind.
Her grandfather had derided her father for being irresponsible, even though the fact that her father continued to be an adventurer barely inconvenienced him.
And her grandfather must have also thought long and hard about how he could get her father to give up on his dreams.
For example, if he stole a precious jewel her father had found on his adventures and hid it, maybe her father would give up on his dreams.
For example, if he forced him to agree to stop being an adventurer in exchange for returning that gemstone, maybe her father would give up on his dreams.
No, I’m certain my father is a genuine adventurer. He wouldn’t give up, even then. He’d set off on a journey.
Ashley tried to remember.
The last time she had seen her father, he had gotten into a furious argument with her grandfather, the likes of which she had never witnessed before.
Why was that?
Why was it that he had never come back again after that?
It must have been because they had parted for good.
“You’re the worst. Did you really go that far because you wanted to confine my father to this house? Father just wanted to follow his own dreams!”
“A man shouldn’t leave his own daughter behind.”
“I didn’t feel like I was being left behind at all!”
“Regardless of what you think, that’s what it looks like to the rest of the world, with you at home alone.”
“You’re so prejudiced.”
“That’s how the world sees it.”
“And why should I care about the opinion of a bunch of rotten jerks like that? The countries my father told me about in his travel stories sounded way more appealing!”
“…You’ll understand once you’re grown. There’s no meaning in adventuring. It’s much better to stay in your hometown and—”
“No meaning? That can’t be right. More like you robbed it of all meaning, Grandpa!”
Really, her father should have been walking around with the goddess tear, traveling through the world with proof that the goddesses existed. Whereas now, her father was probably wandering aimlessly through the world, since his proof that goddesses existed had been stolen from him.
Ashley found that unforgivable.
“I’m leaving now.” She had been preparing for years to say those words, but they came out spontaneously at that moment. “I’m leaving this house, and I’m going to become an adventurer just like my father.”
Her grandfather was indignant at those words.
“You idiot! Do you want to be just like your father?!”
“That’s what I just said!”
“What meaning is there in chasing after nonexistent goddesses?!”
“The goddesses are out there for sure! This gemstone proves their existence.”
“It does not. Goddesses are nothing but a myth. Do you plan to waste your whole life, misled by that little pebble?”
“It’s not just a pebble! This is a goddess tear. It’s a precious gem with special powers!”
“Humph. The power to make whoever holds it into a moron?”
“…I’ve had enough.”
She could tell that no matter how long they argued, there was no way they were going to see eye to eye. Then, still holding the jewel in her hand, Ashley broke free of her grandfather’s control, energetically dashed out of the house, and ran away.
She ran frantically, until she could no longer hear her grandfather’s shouting voice.
In this way, her journey began several years ago, and she had not returned home since.
Just like her father.