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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The World Within the Heart
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A stooped old woman, holding a child's hand, arrived in the frontier city of Dungton.
"You have nowhere to go?"
At the question from the director of the Dungton Relief Shelter, the old woman nodded.
The old woman's appearance was dreadful.
Her clothes were tattered, and her grimy face was dotted with scabs. Her complexion was poor as well.
The director sighed in an exaggerated voice.
"Hah... It seems another village has met with tragedy. A grim world we live in."
Tears welled in the corners of the old woman's wrinkled eyes.
"And the child?"
"My grandson."
"How old is he?"
"He's just turned three."
The director pulled back the robe's hood that half-covered the child's face.
The child didn't cry, simply staring intently at the director.
Silver hair, a rare sight in the south, and skin so pale it was almost white. His round eyes shone with a mystical peacock hue.
"Grandson? I don't see any resemblance."
The director spat on the ground and continued.
"Be on your way. We don't have a room for the two of you."
"P-please. We truly have nowhere else to go, if you could just..."
The old woman grabbed the arm of the director, who was turning away coldly, and held out her hand.
On her dirty palm lay a jeweled brooch, intricately carved with a delicate pattern.
The director very naturally slipped the brooch into his pocket.
"Follow me."
The old woman took the child's hand and followed the director.
They passed through a long, iron-barred gate, crossed a small, plaza-like space, and walked past a fine-looking building before a large, well-built structure came into view.
The old woman and the child were led to an empty room on the second floor.
It had the atmosphere of a rundown inn, quite shabby and dirty.
"What are your names?"
"I'm Helen. This child... is Loan."
"It's late. I'll explain the rules and the fees tomorrow."
They had barely managed to survive and make it this far. Even this was more than she could ask for.
"Thank you, thank you so much."
Once inside the room with the door locked, Helen finally let out a long sigh and released Loan's hand.
As if he had been waiting, Loan asked.
"Where's Mommy? And Daddy?"
"They'll be here soon, after you've had a little sleep."
Looking at the child's face, the old woman could finally manage a smile of relief.
It was her last.
Helen did not survive the night.
"What rotten luck."
The director, whose sleep had been disturbed by Loan's crying since dawn, opened the door to check on the situation.
He spat on the floor, annoyed, as his wife asked.
"Why did she die?"
"How should I know? Her face is all bluish, as if she drank some poison."
"Suicide?"
"Nah. She looked unwell from the moment I first saw her."
"What do we do with him? He's so pretty."
She tried to soothe him, but as if he knew his own fate, Loan would not stop crying.
The director asked her.
"How many silver-haired ones do we have?"
"None with a color this fine. Pauline's is probably the closest, I guess?"
"Hah, with those eyes, he's definitely part elf. What do you think? He and Pauline would make quite a picture, wouldn't they?"
"Let's do that. He'll surely bring in more money with her than alone."
A short while later.
Loan was led to a gaunt woman.
"Pauline, from today on, you'll be taking him with you to work."
The woman called Pauline bowed her head, her face expressionless.
Her hair was lifeless and brittle, closer to ash than silver.
Though she was barely more than a girl herself, for the sole reason that their hair color was similar, Pauline became Loan's fake mother.
* * *
Loan wandered the city in Pauline's arms.
People who took pity on the pair gave them a coin or two, and their earnings were better than when Pauline begged alone.
"It's true. A pretty face makes people feel more sorry for you."
The director was very pleased.
The Dungton Relief Shelter was a royal charity that received subsidies for feeding and housing vagrants and refugees with nowhere to go, but its main source of income came from the daily begging of its dozens of residents.
That was why there weren't many adults over the age of twenty at the shelter.
Most left for somewhere before reaching that age, but no one knew where they went.
Pauline, who was right on that cusp, was allowed to stay at the shelter because she was paired with Loan.
One winter day, after the fake mother and son had spent five years begging together.
The director summoned Loan to his office.
"You called for me, Director?"
"Yes. Getting ready for work?"
"Yes, Mama Pauline and I were just about to leave."
Now eight years old, Loan was very thin, but that only made him look all the more pitiful and pathetic.
It was thanks to his unusually white skin and delicate features.
The director looked Loan over and spoke gently.
"It's time for you to stand on your own two feet, Loan. You can't stay in Pauline's arms forever, can you?"
"Ah... Yes, I understand."
Loan had no choice but to nod.
He was, in fact, the only one his age who didn't go out begging alone.
It was because he and Pauline made for a better picture together, but now both of them were getting too old for that.
"What about Mama Pauline, Director?"
"What mother? Besides, when you reach that age, you have to become independent. No exceptions."
On the day Pauline and Loan finished their last round of begging as mother and son.
The two sat side-by-side in a secluded corner of Dungton Park. It was their own special spot, a place where they often rested, hidden from watchful eyes.
The sun had already sunk low in the west. The surroundings were bathed in a crimson glow.
Loan asked.
"Where are you going, Mama Pauline?"
"To be a maid at some noble's estate. I got lucky."
Loan gave Pauline a bright smile.
"Why?"
"No... I'm just glad for you."
"Don't worry about me. You just take care of yourself."
Pauline pouted and ruffled Loan's hair.
From the day they met until now, he had always been a polite and good child.
He was very quiet, had a timid streak, and was quite conscious of others' moods, but that wasn't an unusual disposition at the shelter.
However, Loan's appearance stood out too much.
He looked handsome even when caked in grime, and noble even in shabby clothes. Though just as skinny as the others, he evoked an unusual urge to protect.
Because of this, Loan was ostracized by the other children at the shelter. He was even warned not to act up, though he had done nothing at all.
'I can't do anything about it in the dorm, but try to stick with me as much as possible.'
Loan did as Pauline said.
Although Pauline was frail and skinny, she was the oldest at the shelter, so even the other children couldn't easily ignore her.
Pauline made up as many excuses as she could to keep Loan with her.
Pauline, his fake mother, was his guardian in the truest sense.
Loan knew this well.
"Thank you for everything, Mama Pauline."
"There you go again. What's there to thank me for? I should be thanking you."
Pauline, who had answered in a flat voice, glanced at Loan and was startled.
Tears were streaming down the boy's face.
Except for when he had to force himself to cry for begging, Pauline had never seen Loan cry.
Flustered, Pauline patted Loan's shoulder.
"What's this? You're a big boy now, why are you crying?"
"...My mother and father, Helen, and now you, Mama Pauline... everyone leaves me like this. Now I'm truly alone."
Loan remembered everything.
The scene in the blood-soaked hallway he had passed through amidst screams.
Helen's ragged breaths as she held him and desperately crossed the strange-tasting river.
The moment Helen had told him to grow up to be kind, strong, and polite, just before she drew her last breath.
Pauline's screams as she shielded young Loan and took kicks from a vagrant.
Only after he got older did he begin to understand the meaning of these memories, one by one.
The people who had protected and cherished him.
Now that Pauline was also leaving, the emotions he had held back for so long burst forth as sorrow.
"..."
Pauline hugged Loan's thin body tightly.
The boy's body was damp with warmth.
Pauline was reminded, once again, of how much she cared for Loan.
As Loan's sobbing body trembled, Pauline's trembled along with it. She, too, cried a great deal.
"Look at me."
A moment later, Pauline released Loan from her embrace and looked warmly at his face.
She gently placed Loan's hands over his own chest, then covered them with hers.
The boy's heartbeat flowed through his small hands and rested in Pauline's palms.
For a moment, they stayed like that.
Once the boy's sobs had subsided a little.
"Loan. You're only truly alone when this place is empty."
"...What do you mean?"
"It means that as long as you keep the people who left in your heart, you're not alone. If you look inside quietly, you'll be able to see how much 'we' all cherish... and love you."
Loan looked down at his chest and asked again.
"How do I look into my heart?"
"Close your eyes and feel."
"Close my eyes and..."
She had only wanted to convey that he wasn't alone. It was just something she said to comfort him.
But Loan believed her words with all his heart.
"Close my eyes and..."
Repeating the words, Loan quietly closed his eyes.
Sorrow welled up again from time to time, but Loan kept his eyes squeezed shut.
He remained that way as Pauline sat quietly beside him, watching the sun set completely.
*Is he trying to feel his real parents' love this way? Or is he this sad about me leaving?*
Her eyes grew hot with tears again, and Pauline quietly stood up and paced around Loan.
A short while later, Loan did not open his eyes until the section chief came to collect him and Pauline.
That night, after Pauline had left the shelter.
Loan waited until everyone was asleep, then quietly opened the door and went out into the shelter's garden.
'If I look into my heart...'
Loan repeated the words to himself and closed his eyes.
As always, the world behind his eyelids was still pitch black.
Even the dim moonlight wasn't there.
It was no different than usual.
'Mom, Dad, Helen, Pauline...'
In the 'space behind his eyes,' which until a moment ago he had given no special meaning, Loan tried to find the people who were watching over him.
He searched and searched, delving deeper and deeper into the abyss of darkness.
Not knowing what he was supposed to find in a place of nothingness, he spent a long time just thinking.
'I have to open... the eye of my heart, so I can see it.'
At the moment he thought and willed it so.
A change finally stirred within Loan.
In a world that had been nothing but darkness, a faint halo of light appeared and slowly began to sharpen.
'Huh?'
The wall of perception that had blocked him, another eyelid that had been closed, crumbled away in an instant.
The halos of light took form, and upon those forms, they were layered with shades of light and dark, with textures both rough and smooth.
In this constructed world, the paths of wind and air were drawn, and the energy of life blossomed everywhere.
The trees, the birds, the insects crawling on the ground—they all emitted their own unique light.
'Closing my eyes didn't make the world disappear.'
Just because something was unseen didn't mean it was 'darkness,' and darkness was not the same as 'nothingness.'
It was only for an instant.
But after that moment, the way Loan understood the world changed completely.
A moment of intense experience that could be called an enlightenment, or an awakening.
"Whoa..."
The world that had been confined and limited by his sight when his eyes were open—
became vastly wider and deeper when he closed them.
This phenomenon, which would have likely driven an ordinary child—no, an ordinary human—to madness—
'It's beautiful.'
Loan accepted it with a joyful smile.
He could see the world even with his eyes closed.
He realized he could see it more brightly, warmly, and brilliantly, without any scary faces or sharp gazes.
'I can feel them all. My mother and father. Helen and Pauline...'
That day, in the world of radiant light, Loan saw the love of those who had cherished him.
It was just that no one else knew of the process of his awakening.