Chapter 7
Beloved Child of the Spirits Arc
. Journey by Carriage
We showed Wio’s adventurer card at the royal capital’s gate and left the city. Since Wio carried a high-rank card, the officials didn’t bother to question his companions in detail.
“Have you ever ridden in a carriage for several days before?”
“No.”
“If you get tired, tell me. We’ll take a rest.”
Once we left the capital and traveled along the main road, the silence was heavy. Wio wasn’t much of a talker, and the fire child still hadn’t warmed up to him, so there was no conversation at all. At first, the fire child looked around with curiosity, but before long, the unchanging scenery bored him, and he began to look restless.
“Want to go in the back with Ruge?”
“Yeah.”
When he gave a small nod, Wio pulled the carriage to the roadside and helped the fire child into the wagon bed. Most of the luggage back there had been packed by his older brothers specifically for him. In a corner, where a mat and cushions had been laid out, Wio sat the child down before returning to the driver’s seat.
As the carriage moved again, the fire child sat quietly in the wagon bed, with nothing to do and nothing to see. After a while, he began to sob softly. Maybe he had been holding it in all this time, or maybe being alone had made him feel lonely. When I snuggled closer, he clutched me tightly and burst into tears, loud enough for Wio on the driver’s seat to hear.
After a while, the carriage stopped. Wio must have pulled over into a clearing by the road. He climbed into the back, lifted the still-crying fire child onto his lap, and gently stroked his back until he cried himself to sleep.
“Was he lonely?”
“Most likely. Should I keep him up front with me? Tell me when he wakes up.”
“Yip.”
Wio laid the sleeping fire child down in the wagon bed again and urged the horses forward. His brothers had forbidden him to camp outdoors, so we had to reach the next town before sunset.
Even though he drove a little faster and the carriage shook, the fire child never woke until we reached the town.
Inside the gates, Wio headed straight to the most expensive inn we’d been told about. His brothers had strictly ordered us not to stay in any place commonly used by adventurers. Wio, being an adventurer himself, looked conflicted, but followed the order.
At the inn, before anyone could say something about a traveler with a pet and a child, Wio pushed back his hood and showed his high-rank adventurer card. As soon as he said he wanted a room for the night, the doorman’s attitude changed completely. Minus points for him. Then someone who looked like the manager came rushing over and personally escorted us to a fine room.
We ordered only Wio’s meal. I already had the lightly-seasoned food prepared at the mansion, and the fire child, who had fallen asleep, still hadn’t eaten the lunch his family had packed.
When he woke, we fed him, then Wio bathed him—well, more like sat together in the warm water—and afterward, we all slept in the same bed. The fire child resisted at first, but Wio pulled him in without a word of argument.
Once the boy had curled up on the edge of the bed and drifted off, Wio gently moved him toward the center.
“Nobles don’t usually sleep with their parents, do they?”
“That’s true. But on a journey like this, it’s fine.”
Perhaps he was doing for this child what he himself had once wished for. I wondered if little Wio, too, had fought loneliness alone in his bed. The way he pulled the blanket over the child and stroked him with such tenderness—it was deeply moving. Being with this child was slowly changing Wio’s heart.
We stopped by a village on the way, bought some fruit, and shared it with the fire child.
After returning from the Calista Forest once, Wio had helped an injured horse that turned out to belong to this village. Since then, whenever we passed through between summer and autumn, we always stopped here to buy fruit.
Wio peeled and cut the fruit into small pieces, then fed them to me, then the fire child, and then himself, like a parent bird feeding chicks. Back when our journey first began, Wio could do nothing more than peel fruit, but now he could manage simple cooking as well. He’d told us that back in the knight order, he was usually assigned to stir the stew pot. Considering that, he had made impressive progress.
“How adorable. Is he your secret child?”
“My nephew.”
Ah yes, country aunties truly are invincible. To accuse Wio of hiding a child—what a bold leap!
She handed over a small carved wooden fish. A toy?
“This is a local charm against fire. My son made it, so I can’t promise it works, but when a child with a fire attribute is born, we gift it. The fish is supposed to splash water on them so they don’t get burned. Eat well and grow strong, little one.”
She placed the fish in the fire child’s hand.
“Ryuka, say thank you.”
“……”
“Yip!”
The boy just stared silently at the fish in his hand. “That’s fine, that’s fine. Take care now,” the woman said, waving as she left.
After she was gone, the fire child whispered in a small voice:
“If I had this, would I not have gotten burned?”
“No… that wouldn’t have been possible. Sooner or later, your magic would have gone out of control, and you would have hurt someone.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?!”
“You’re going to learn. In Turebol, they’ll teach you. Ryuka, the power you hold is too strong. But that isn’t your fault. When I was a child, I struggled just the same.”
“The same?”
“The same.”
As the fire child squeezed the wooden fish in his hand, Wio patted his head, then sat back down on the driver’s bench. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
Because Wio’s power was ice, the damage around him hadn’t been as severe. And as a noble, he could afford servants and tutors to help him. For commoners, that was impossible.
In that light, the church of Turebol gathering children like him actually made sense. Of course, they surely intended to use that power for the sake of the church and the kingdom one day. But children like the fire child wouldn’t be abandoned by their parents, caught up in noble power struggles, or forced to blame themselves for hurting others without understanding why.
When his father and brothers investigated before taking the fire child in, they found no record in this kingdom of anyone whose eyes bore the mark of fire.
It wasn’t that they had never existed—perhaps they simply hadn’t survived long enough to be remembered.
