After enjoying the wondrous natural hot spring to the fullest, the family quickly went to bed, waking with the first rays of the sun. They ate a small breakfast while admiring the solemn view of the sunrise, then immediately set out to descend the mountain.
It didn’t take long for them to descend the gentle slope. They reached the foot of the mountain by midday, and continued their travels on the crumbling road toward the small settlement, which they reached by sunset. They managed to restock their supplies just before the stores closed for the day, spent the night at a small inn, and left the village in the refreshing, still-cool morning.
Their next stop was the commercial city of Barjyo. To get there, they took a warm, sunny dirt road running through a number of fields, in between which they found deep, dense thickets, indicating a lack of any larger human settlements nearby. Each time they walked into one of the thickets, it was as if they had entered a cool, well-insulated house on a scorching summer day. The leaves blocked out most of the sunlight, making those parts of the trip much more enjoyable. Each gentle breeze rustled all the leaves and plants on the ground, turning nature into a grand orchestra.
They were nice places to spend some time at, but Anima had one worry: no matter how long they walked, the scenery didn’t change at all. Sooner or later, the kids would grow tired of it, which would make them all groggy. Luckily for him, those fears proved completely baseless, as Marie was busy picking up the acorns that littered the side of the road while Myuke rode Anima’s shoulders and picked various wild fruits. They would occasionally find a heart-shaped leaf on the ground, which was a special event in and of itself. Suffice to say, with all the activities available to them, there wasn’t a moment of boredom.
As the night fell, they set up camp next to the road. The following two days passed in a similar fashion, but on the morning of the third day, the group finally came to the end of what seemed to be an endless expanse of trees, bushes, and acorns. Instead of a dense forest, they found themselves on a never-ending green plain. The scenery was similar to that of the very first day of their trip, so Anima assumed that the girls wouldn’t be excited about it.
Much to his surprise—and delight—they were ecstatic; they seemed to have remembered the fun they’d had that day. Marie gleefully exclaimed that she loved red upon finding a red flower she hadn’t seen before, and Myuke was left wondering if, somehow, she naturally attracted butterflies when another one landed on her head. As they continued their way across the plain, they came upon a small hill. The road led around it, but...
“I love cimb!”
“The view must be incredible from up there!”
At the girls’ request, they decided to check out the view from the top.
“Wooow!”
“Amazing...”
Their eyes twinkled as they looked far off into the distance. They were completely enamored with the view of the large city—twice if not three times the size of Garaat—that panned out right in front of them.
“At last. We’ll arrive at Barjyo shortly,” Shaer noted as she slowly descended next to the family while looking at the city with a profound expression.
Barjyo was surrounded by tall, thick-looking walls, presumably to keep the monsters out, but one could enter its premises from a number of different directions. With all the gates dotting the walls and all the roads connecting to them, the city almost looked like a pinwheel from the outside. One of those roads was sure to lead to the bridge occupied by the monster. The fact that they couldn’t see the bridge from their vantage point meant that they must have been rather far from it.
Anima was confident in his strength, but he didn’t have any valuable information on the monster’s strength. He was prepared to fight tooth and nail to protect his peaceful family life... but that could wait one more day. More than anything else, he wanted to enjoy some time in Barjyo with his family.
“Let’s head down.”
They began descending the hill at Anima’s proposal, with Shaer walking at the front while they engaged in lively chitchat.
“Have you ever been to Barjyo, Luina?” Anima asked. She was the only one who wasn’t visibly amazed by the spectacle.
“Once, twelve years ago.”
“With your family?”
“Yes. We started the orphanage three months after that, so our trip to Barjyo was our last trip together.”
“What did you do there?”
“Shopping, mostly. There are so many extraordinary things for sale in this city that simply exploring all the various stores made a full day go by in a flash.” Luina excitedly shared her experience in Barjyo, longingly recollecting her last family trip. “There were so many foods I’d never even seen, let alone eaten before! I actually asked Dad to let me try one. I expected an amazingly sweet candy, but it was sour as a lemon! Oh, but don’t get me wrong—it was really yummy!
“The marketplace is like a festival when it gets busy! The small shops get buried under the sea of people... I remember splitting off from my parents and getting lost there. I had been having such an amazing time, but that suddenly made me feel so small, fragile, and... alone. I broke down in tears. Then, one of the shop owners brought me cookies, and they were sooo delicious! I’ll never forget their taste!”
Anima listened to her stories with a gentle smile.
“Sounds like you had a lot of fun.”
“I did, but not only with the shopping. Fishing was a blast too!”
“On the lake Shaer told us about?”
An entire district within Barjyo was occupied by a lake that, judging by its sheer size, no doubt had fish in it. Luina was vividly reliving her memory as a childlike smile spread across her face.
“Yes! Dad and I rented rods and went fishing together. He caught so many fish, but I didn’t do very well. Ah, but I did catch the very last fish all by myself! And it was the biggest one! I can still remember how triumphant and excited I felt, and the taste of that fish.”
Her lovely, warm smile didn’t fade in the slightest while she recounted her sweet childhood memory. She seemed to really treasure that trip. Anima’s goal as a father was to bless the girls with similarly unforgettable, fun experiences. His wish was to help them make memories they could tell with longing smiles to their own children once they grew up, got married, and started families of their own.
“All right then, what do you say we go to the market, then try fishing at the lake together?”
The girls’ eyes lit up with excitement. Luina’s stories must have moved them.
“You know, you know, I love fissies!”
“I’m hungry just thinking about it! Can’t wait to check out the market!”
Their excited voices filled the plain. They kept discussing all the things they wanted to do in the city while walking there, and before long, they arrived at the gates of the commercial city of Barjyo.