Description
Dirt clung to the small cuts as they began to bleed. The girl’s face was distorted by the throbbing pain every time she moved her legs, but she ran on, regardless.
“Yeriel Rasch! If you ask Eldoram for forgiveness right away and surrender that blasphemous object, you will not be banished from the village!”
A menacing yell followed closely behind the girl.
The girl gritted her teeth and sped up her legs even faster. She felt like her bronchial tubes were on fire, and her lungs hurt like they were going to explode.
A conspicuous color flashed in the girl’s cloudy eyes as she wandered in the darkness. The girl then lowered herself at once and began digging up the soil with her bare hands. Like a dog digging up the ground, she hastily pulled out the grasses and scraped the dirt and stones off the ground.
“Huff, huff!”
Drops of sweat from the girl fell like rain on the dug-up soil. “Come on, come on…” the girl muttered under her breath, as if berating herself.
The hidden moonlight cast a soft glow on the girl as the wind gently rustled the bushy leaves. The sight of a scrawny young girl frantically digging up dirt was eerie enough that anyone who saw her would have started a ghost story about her.
“Aaaagh!”
“I found her, Elder Rumdrean!” A hand roughly grabbed the girl’s shoulder and yanked her violently backward.
The girl fell onto her back and landed on a stone. Thud! The dull sound echoed painfully, but the girl didn’t even consider rubbing her buttocks before crawling back to all fours and continuing to dig up the ground.
“You have nowhere to run now!”
“Ugh …! Let me go!”
Yeriel was picked up by her collar and lifted off the ground by the man who had just pushed her shoulder. Her two injured feet flailed pitifully in the air.
“Stay quiet! You filthy Rasch!”
The girl gathered her saliva in her mouth and spat it out as if she were cursing.
The man’s eyebrows were dampened by her white-bubbled saliva before it thickly dripped down. All at once, the man’s face distorted horrifyingly.
“You have a death wish, don’t you?” The man threw the girl and struck her in the head, which was smaller than the palm of his hand. Whack.
Along with excruciating pain, the girl’s ears rang with piercing tinnitus. Her vision quickly blurred to the point where she couldn’t keep herself steady.
“Ha… U-ugh.”
Even though he could see the girl writhing in pain, the man kept blowing steam out of his nostrils, as if his rage had not yet been subdued. The man then said as he rolled up his sleeves, “Well, all right. You’ve always annoyed me with your smug attitude for a Rasch, so allow me to give you a proper lesson today. I’ll show you what it’s like to live like Rasch!”
With the intention of crushing the girl, the man lifted his leg high. He was about to stomp viciously on the girl.
“Stop it, Tonio. Hestias are expected to conduct themselves with dignity at all times.”
“E-elder Rumdrean!”
An elderly man with gray hair down to his waist strolled leisurely down the mountain path, as if he were walking on the surface of the water. The old man’s water-colored robe had not a single leaf attached, despite having climbed the same mountain as the girl. His robe, instead, swayed like a wave. With his back straight, the elderly man approached the girl. Unmistakable disgust and contempt flashed from the old man’s wrinkled eyes.
“Blargh–”
A woman who trailed behind the elderly man retched while plugging her nose. She wasn’t the only one who was repulsed by the foul smell.
In fact, the area around the girl was filled with an offensive odor that made people want to throw up. The stench, however, was not coming from the girl’s body, which was covered in sweat and dust. It was coming from her mother’s severed head, which the girl clutched tightly as she ran as if her life depended on it.
“I see you fool has indeed descended the cliff of guilt.”
“My mother is not a sinner!”
“How was it not a sin for her to enter the domain of the noble elementalists as a mere human?”
“Sh-she was only trying to save me!”
“You did indeed inherit the elementalist’s blood, albeit only partially. If you hadn’t drunk the sap from the Spirit Tree, you’d have died before the end of the year.”
“Yeah! Only for my sake did my mother come to this awful place. She didn’t come here because she wanted to!” the girl wailed out loud.
The elderly man did not give a fig about the screaming girl, despite her cries. Just as one did not sympathize with mere bugs, the girl was not of enough worth for the elderly man to sympathize with her.
“You should have just died.”
“……”
“You Rasch are creatures that defy nature. You are a disgrace and a monster that humans and elementalists have created. You were born into this world to die, and nothing else. But your mother defied the unspoken rule and stole the sap from the Tree of Life. Sinners have no right to return to nature and must rot beneath the cliff of guilt!”
Unbearable frustration, resentment … and even rage overtook her, leaving her speechless. She knew the elderly man in front of her would never even try to understand, no matter how much she cried and begged.
“Oh … Father,” the girl sobbed quietly, belying her age. Why did you marry my mother, who was doing well on her own? Why did you give birth to me?
The girl gazed at the small tombstone next to the pit she had dug. The tombstone, which was surrounded by overgrown weeds, had been left unattended, as if it had been abandoned on this rough hill.
Mother died after falling from the cliff of guilt, breaking her neck. And I had to watch my mother writhe in agony as I hung from a tree on the cliff. How about you, Father?
Despite her best efforts to protect her mother’s head with her frail arms, it was taken away from her once again. The girl was then led to the cliff of guilt. Hanging from a massive tree, she wept as she watched her mother’s head roll down the cliff. She neither blinked nor averted her gaze throughout.
* * *
