The rain was incessant. The cloudy sky reached as far as the eye could see, almost as though the sky the whole world over was covered with rain clouds. The ceaselessly falling raindrops muddied the ground and slowly robbed those traveling upon it of their body heat. Even an oilskin coat was no help. It felt as though the cold air was slowly soaking into his body.
Yukinari couldn’t imagine anything more irritating.
“Maybe this was a bad idea.” He looked around. Surrounding him was the scenery of a mountain forest.
It hadn’t seemed like a bad idea to come through here at first: the gradient wasn’t particularly steep, and there were rows and rows of trees that looked like they could be of some use in sheltering against the rain. However, in this near-deluge, this was like trying to plug the leaks in a sieve; not only that, but it was easy to trip over the wet and muddy leaf mold, making walking immensely difficult.
“This is... depressing...” mumbled the young girl walking next to Yukinari. She had a lovely face, but overall it looked a little slack, almost like she had only just gotten out of bed and was still half asleep. If one were being generous, they would call it a face that exuded natural cuteness. Less generously, they would say that when compared to the faces of others, hers felt like it was somehow missing something. Or rather, that it was impossible to shake the impression that she resembled a doll, an impression which was only strengthened by her short-cut silver hair and large glasses.
While walking, the girl removed her glasses and proceeded to wipe them with a cloth she had taken from her pocket. However, perhaps because she had repeated this a little too often, the cloth itself was also wet and, even after a thorough wipe, small droplets of water were still left on the lenses. This never-ending rain must have been even more miserable for her than for a person without glasses.
Yukinari turned to look at her and called to get her attention. “Hey! Don’t do that while walking—”
Splat. The girl tripped and her small body fell hard onto the ground, mud spattering everywhere.
“Ugh. What’d I tell you?” Yukinari said. Sighing, he stopped next to her and offered his hand. “Are you okay, Dasa?”
“Ewww... I’m all... wet,” Dasa mumbled, unsticking herself from the ground. She put her glasses back in her inside pocket, clung to Yukinari’s arm, and pulled herself up. She couldn’t even see her feet clearly without glasses, and her vision would be worse still in rain like this. They had come this far because she herself had insisted that she could handle it, but it had probably been too much for her after all.
“Ugh...” Yukinari helped the mud-covered Dasa to her feet, then crouched in front of her. Although she was wearing a coat, tripping and falling had inevitably resulted in the layers underneath it also becoming sopping wet. She would steadily get colder and colder if she were left like this. “You’re probably gonna catch a cold. We’d better find somewhere to take shelter from the rain and dry your clothes.”
“Around... here?”
As previously mentioned, for better or worse, this was a gently sloping mountain. Although there were plenty of trees, there was no sign of any caves or rock shelves that might serve as a roof.
“There’s gotta be somewhere, the base of a big tree or something... Wishful thinking?” Yukinari looked around him, but he couldn’t spot anything of the sort.
Perhaps they should have stayed a little longer in the previous town. There was a potential that they might “leave a trail” if they were to stay in the same place for a long time, so they had deliberately decided to set out after they had made modest preparations. It may have been the right move for Yukinari, but maybe not for Dasa: now that this had happened, her physical well-being was at risk. Of course, regretting it now wouldn’t change anything.
“Dasa. Can you walk?” Yukinari asked, offering his hand to her.
“I think I’m... fine,” she said, clinging to Yukinari’s arm once more. “Sorry... Yuki.”
“It’s okay. Don’t sweat it.” Yukinari let out a single sigh and started walking on with Dasa again.
The rain showed no signs of stopping.
✦ ✦ ✦
●
Friedland was a small town in the mountains. It was located in a basin of sorts sandwiched between mountainous regions to the east and west, and was directly affected by the fickle mountain climate. Of course, that made it a place that received nature’s blessings in abundance, but on the other hand, there was only a limited amount of land there that was suitable for cultivation. And because the area offered nothing unique, the town wasn’t financially stable, nor could it be called affluent.
However, even in such places, human beings have to do what’s necessary to survive. Very few people were able to leave the land where they were born, and this was not true for just the residents of Friedland. The influence of the state, meant to maintain order throughout the entire country, had difficulty extending to outlying regions like this. People always took their lives into their own hands when traveling, and once they were a certain distance from any towns or villages, there was no shortage of threats: not only were there the lawless, of course, such as bandits and night thieves, but also ferocious animals, demigods, and xenobeasts.
“Hey. Look at that.”
Heading down the main street that passed through the center of Friedland and led to the roads outside the town was a procession of dozens of people and a single shrine float. The people in the procession were wearing long robes dyed indigo, and all were holding poles with bells in their hands. Every time they took a step, the clear, monotonous sound of the many bells rang out, and they were trailed by the muddy sloshing of the float’s large wheels gouging out the ground.
It was a ritual procession. This event, held once every three years, was by now a familiar sight to many inhabitants of this town. The sight of a girl sitting atop the float with her head down was also one the people knew well. The thin clothing she was wearing was more like an undergarment, and the few pieces of fabric constructing it were so thin that her skin was visible through them. This clothing was something created especially for this ritual every time it came around, and depending on your perspective, it could have been called incredibly erotic.
The crowd of people standing and watching the ritual procession were exchanging murmurs. “This year’s shrine maiden is awfully young,” someone whispered. There was no excitement in their words; instead of the exultation of festival-goers, their voices carried a languid, gloomy tone that evoked a sense of resignation.
“She’s not half bad lookin’ too. It’s a criminal waste, it is.”
“She was an orphan brought up specifically for this day. What can you do?”
“Look at all the good it’s done. All this rain, and there’s been no river flooding, no landslides...”
The whispers continued as they watched the procession recede into the distance. Their gazes, cast upon the girl sitting atop the float, were much like those of people watching a funeral procession.
✦ ✦ ✦
●
Before long, the procession reached its destination.
“Get out.” The order came from the three priests who were standing at the head of the line.
“Yes...” Berta nodded obediently and alighted from the float.