Suddenly, the child had this thought.

“Why did I go there?”

Returning to the slum, he had only focused on the disappearances of the villagers, including his mother, and pondered various things so much that he had never really thought about the bizarre phenomena that had happened to him. Perhaps he should have considered that first, before anything else? Even though he hadn’t thought about it when he first crossed over to the other world, as adapting to that world had been overwhelming enough, now that he was back, it wasn’t something to simply dismiss as over. For example, the child had been deliberately avoiding ‘that chair’ in the living room, fearing that sitting or lying on it might send him back to that place. Unable to make logical reasoning about his question, he avoided the chair, fearful of illogical outcomes.

“What don’t I know?”

There was so much he didn’t know. Originally, the child hadn’t learned a single letter or number. In the other world, he had seen and learned a lot through ‘school’ and ‘books,’ but he was merely a ‘first-grader.’ Fifth-graders, sixth-graders, middle schoolers, or high schoolers would certainly learn and grasp more, and it was clear that he was lacking since he hadn’t gone through such a process. Therefore, it was only natural that he couldn’t think of the answers to all the questions he had.

The numerous doubts had passed by and struck the child’s body. Pulling his arms and legs close, he curled up and fell asleep.

The morning sun slowly approached from over the mountain and reached the clearing. The dawn mist that had been wriggling among the sporadic trees made way, and its place was taken by the warmth-filled sunlight. As the diligent pine birds began to move across the blue sky in search of food, a sound awakened the morning beneath a large oak tree at the foot of the mountain.

“Ugh.”

Despite having used his thick robe as a blanket – as is typical with homelessness – the chilly morning air had stiffened his body. As he stretched upon rising, an involuntary groan escaped his lips. Unwrapping the robe that had been tightly wound around his body, his wildly tousled white hair cascaded down past his shoulders. The tough skin, hardened by exposure, could not defy the passage of time.

His face, etched with wrinkles three times his age, his swollen upper lip, and even thicker lower lip parted as if exhaling the chill of the previous night, an old man named ‘Pincheno’ slowly looked around and listened. Eventually, hearing the sound of flowing water, he slowly got up, dusted off his robe haphazardly, and draped it over himself.

“Ah, sigh.”

Even the simple acts of moving his arms and legs were mixed with sighs, making him wonder if it was time to go. He had lived longer, seen more, and experienced more than others. This journey, which he had embarked upon thinking it was time to prepare, did not feel like the beginning anymore. That made sense, considering he had been living the life of a nomad for ten years now. He had become an old man who had lost his initial purpose.

“Hungry and nothing to eat, owning nothing and nowhere to obtain anything.”

Humming to himself, Pincheno dipped a finger into the water.

“Ouch, cold!”

Though it was spring by the calendar, traces of winter lingered, complicating matters. This was also why he couldn’t see any food around. In time, maybe he could find blackberries or berries, and later, apricots might be available, but for now, it was difficult.

After lightly splashing water on his face for a wash, the old man searched inside and outside his robe. He checked the pouch tied to his waist and inside the sleeves, but found nothing to eat. With no signs of inhabited homes nearby or any smoke from morning fires, he looked around.

“Oh well, such is life.”

Grumbling, he checked his attire and set out. If he stayed still, he wouldn’t find anything to fill his stomach, so he had to move. As he walked, Pincheno thought, somehow, it would work out.

He had wandered many places, but this location was new to him. The city he had visited before coming here was, to his knowledge, the most westerly city in this country.

To the west lay the ‘Great Mountains,’ a towering barrier stretching from north to south, dividing the east and west. To the east of the Great Mountains were several countries, including the Duchy of Buono where he had spent the past few years. These lands had a history of countries emerging and disappearing through years of war and decades of political strife, collectively known as ‘Dvubici.’

People from ‘Dvubici’ seldom came towards the Great Mountains, and even if they did, they had little reason to come this far. Since the region neither produced notable goods that merchants would seek out, nor held any political significance, it remained off the radar of power brokers. Thus, people referred to this place as ‘Akristos,’ meaning useless.

Pincheno normally would not have thought to climb the Great Mountains. They were impassable, and those who crossed them never returned. But the old man was considering his end, thus he had come here. However, he had not intended to end his days through starvation, so he continued to search for food.

The wind that had crossed the hills at dawn had shaken the house where the child slept a couple of times. Startled by the rattling of the windows, he woke up, but hearing only the whistling of the air inside the dark room, he fell back asleep repeatedly, resulting in a restless night.

Whether it was the chill that had frozen his head or not, he felt slightly dizzy when he got up. Thinking it might be good to sunbathe, he went outside to a large flat rock. The rock was cold, but he thought it better than the bed, so he climbed up and lay sprawled on it. It had been quite a while since he had acted so boldly without looking around. At the orphanage, the kids often lay in the grass or rolled around in the playground, but he had been too self-conscious to join them. Even climbing the mountain had been a secretive early morning affair, always cautious.

Lying on the rock in the shape of a ‘big X’ and basking in the sun was a spontaneous action that brought a smile to his face.

The warm sunlight streaming down on his eyelids chased away the lingering chill of the night. Enjoying the sensation, he suddenly remembered his current situation.

“What a fool.”

It seemed a wizard must have passed through this place. The chill of the previous night was so intense that it made him wonder if a wizard’s touch had made him so foolish. Putting aside his self-reproach, the child stood up and looked around. As before, when he had left the house, and even now, he could not sense any movement; it seemed that no one had returned to the village during the night.

“Should I go out and look for them?”

The thought of leaving the village on his own was frightening. Waiting until they returned seemed like not a bad option. But then,

“How long should I wait? And can I endure in the meantime?”

These conditions were attached, but

“Wouldn’t it be better than leaving the village?”

He weighed his options, giving reasons for his choices.

Looking far off, he saw the high mountains with long mist encircling their waist. If the people who had left the village had gone to those mountains, then he too must go there. But even though he was well-practiced on forest paths, that place was beyond his reach.

“…”

Staring at the mist-wrapped mountains, he found them utterly mystical. Even on a hot midday, the clouds at the mountain’s peak and the mist on its flanks didn’t easily dissipate, endlessly stimulating the imagination of a young child. However, that place was forbidden.

The adults had only ever traveled as far as the permitted boundaries of the forest and never beyond. The more you’re told not to do something, the more you want to do it, but the child didn’t have the courage to defy his father’s firm ‘no.’ The reason was unknown; it was simply ‘dangerous.’ An undefined ‘danger’ was equally intriguing, but as the adults did not venture into that land, the child had obediently followed his father’s words.

The child often stood on the large flat rock with his sibling or friends, looking at the mountain.

“What are you looking at?”

Startled, the child turned around. A ‘man’ in a drab gray robe reminiscent of the mop used at the orphanage stood behind him, his back to the sun. The child, taken aback, stumbled backward and missed his footing at the edge of the rock. Losing his balance, he fell off the rock, but the man quickly approached and caught him. More than escaping a severe injury, the fact that his wrist was grasped by this unknown figure felt like a greater crisis. Twisting his body, the child jumped down from the rock, and thanks to the man releasing his wrist promptly, he managed to put some distance between them. The man on the rock turned his head this way and that, scanning the village.

“Hmm, does no one live in this village?”

The child watched the man with a wary eye. From a different angle than before, features that hadn’t been visible in the shadow now became apparent. His face was a deep brown with a web of deep wrinkles, more than any other old person he knew. His hair, eyebrows, and beard were all white, but somehow they reminded him of the color of the underwear that Minsu occasionally hid under the bed. The impressively long beard reached down to his waist. He looked like a wizard from a story, though the bits of dry grass and debris stuck in his clothes and beard seemed to shout, ‘I’m a beggar.’ The stick in his left hand appeared to be a crooked piece of wood he had picked up to use as a walking stick. He seemed to be wearing leather sandals, but on closer inspection, they were just torn at the tips.

Conversely, the child appeared intriguing to the old man. To put it simply, he was ‘uncommon’ for this place. Although it might be a prejudice, a child raised in such a poor village should have had a face marked with the yellow of malnutrition or cheeks crusted with dried gruel, but this child’s face was like that of a noble’s son from a big city. Moreover, his observant, lively eyes could rival any scholar’s, full of intelligence. Despite wearing poorly maintained old clothes, his face had a pale, bright sheen, suggesting a story of his own.

One person sent a guarded look, and the other watched with an amused gaze.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

The two spoke at the same time.