Hokuou Kizoku to Moukinzuma no Yukiguni Karigurashi Chapter 49

Translator:
We have four side stories before moving on to volume 2.

The limitless horizons of the plains cannot be split from our life.

The rich green is practically non-existent. Our source of food are the huge bisons roving the lands. We ride on horses and chase them down the cliffs to hunt them.

We pray to the ancient spirits for peace every day. In our village, we live in tents made from wood and bison hides.
We led a nomadic life, protecting our sheep and moving once the food at a land was depleted.

When we encountered other tribes on the move, we sometimes fought with our wealth, the sheep or the horses on the line.

One village has about twenty families. There, the chieftain, a ‘great king’ rules over the place.
A ‘great king’ has more than hundred sheep, and has about twenty wives.

Our main source of food, the bisons, were decreasing in number because of the invaders hunting them.
Because we did not have enough food, we sometimes had to kill our fortunes, our sheep.

We lived in that environment.
For the most of the year, a strong dry wind sweeps the lands and the freezing season is short. There were those who could not survive the harsh nomadic life, but even then we, as a family, supported each other and lived on.

I didn’t inherit much from my parents and led a modest life, but I spent every day surrounded by my kind wife and my cute daughter.

However, then, an incident happened.
The chieftain demanded to hand my wife over.

My wife advised me to give up since the great king’s orders are absolute.
He even proposed to give me dozens of sheep in exchange.

If I had that wealth, I could raise my daughter without many worries, and I can send her off with many sheep when she married.

However, such a future cannot be. I felt that the happiest life was one where I had my wife and my daughter.

That night, I told my wife that we are going out. She agreed with teary eyes. She must have been in pain, and she must have felt restless. I regretted that I should have made this decision earlier.

When I told my relatives, they denounced me, saying that running away was something a coward did.

That I had no right to be called a proud warrior.

However, even if it meant that I could be with my family, I felt no shame from being called a coward.

I considered fighting the king, but if I win his ma.s.sive wealth and his twenty women would become mine. I didn’t want that.
And if I lose, my daughter has to work as a servant to someone else for the rest of her life.
Of course, defeat would mean death, so I wouldn’t be able to help.

Leaving was the best choice.
My pride as a warrior did not matter.

I only took seven sheep because taking more would hinder me. I loaded the luggage on the horse and sat my wife and daughter on top. I would just pull the reins from in front.

Finally, I snapped my spear, the symbol of a warrior. I was no longer a warrior. I was just a man cheris.h.i.+ng his family.

Like so, our long journey started.

I lived off the land.
I hunted animals with a dagger. I fished when I arrived at watersides.

However, I could not hunt well from the beginning. I must reflect from becoming arrogant from hunting large cattle.

At first, I couldn’t even hunt a small rabbit, that my family had to go hungry for some days.
However, my wife made some soup with dried meat, so we could endure.

The unending journey continued.

Then, since I had to cross the mountains, I auctioned off the horse at a village.

Now that we didn’t have a horse, we were wandering around for real.

The snowstorm raged on. We spend our nights in dark and cold caves. But with my wife and my daughter, I somehow persevered.

Some time later, I could see how the wild animals moved.
I understood when they moved around, and how they ran. Once I understood that, it wasn’t so hard to hunt.

I was happiest that I could fill the bellies my wife and my daughter with meat.

One day, we met with a certain foreign woman.
She was wearing clothes not from these parts.

That person seemed to be asking for help. I couldn’t understand her words, but that’s how it felt.

When I followed her, a man was sitting in the shade under a tree.
On closer look, he was unconscious and s.h.i.+vering, and his face was pale.

“……Rest easy. This is not a mortal disease.”
“!?”

When I shook my head, the woman’s face turned into an expression of despair. It seemed that my message wasn’t conveyed. I looked at my wife and asked her to calm the woman down.

What drained the man’s vitality was the high mountain. This place looks like a hill with a gentle slope, but the air thins the further one goes. It’s a common landscape around these parts. This landscape causes many people like that man to suffer from the lack of air.

Thankfully, this is the highest point, so we just have to wait for his symptoms to recede and then take him down.

Once his condition improved, I carried him on my back and we descended the mountain.
It was a bit unstable since I couldn’t get a proper grip on my knife, but my wife walked in front and stood watch. My daughter and the foreign woman were following well, closely behind us.

After we descended, the man’s consciousness returned and his health improved.

Then, we started travelling with that couple.

The man was well-learned. He quickly understood our language and was able to communicate with us.

They were a couple on a journey from the snow country far away. We were in similar situations, so we found kindred spirits within each other.
Though, the difference is that their journey is not unending. They had a home to return to.

“Ah~ I see~”

The foreign man said in a somewhat drawling manner. When our conversation got deeper from alcohol, he put forth a surprising proposal.

“Then, come to our village. Okay?”

He first spoke in our language and spoke in his language to his wife for her approval.

“Oh, my, okay~! That’s a great idea~. Since Ritchan is probably lonely~.”

I didn’t understand her words, but she also said something in a somewhat drawling manner. They might be a couple very like each other.

The unending journey concluded refres.h.i.+ngly.

I heard about the extreme cold of the lands we were brought to, but because I felt colder during our journey, I was unexpectedly unperturbed.

The new chieftain here was a young man.
The young man’s name is Ritzhard Salonen Revontulet. He’s shorter than my wife and felt untrustworthy for some reason.

Unlike his father, he couldn’t understand us. I tried to teach him our language, but foreign languages are hard. He gave up quickly.

However, he actively tried to communicate to us with gestures.
Soon, we were able to have simple conversations just through gestures.

Hunting in this village is done with a strange metal thing. The young chieftain pointed at that and told me its name. I also learned how to use it and how to maintain it, but I just continued to hunt with a dagger.

Just that, there were many ferocious animals in this region.
Sadly, I did not meet any cows.

I offered hunted rabbits to the chieftain every day. He was being humble, but I thought that just one rabbit was too little a payment for a warm house.

My wife cooked in the house. The foreign cuisine she learned from the chieftain’s mother were all tasty.
My daughter grew well, and started helping out with some light housework.

I wanted to gift the chieftain with a large beast for giving us this life. That desire grew stronger each day inside me.

One night, I found a large beast that I never saw before. It was a mysterious creature that walked on all fours, had brown fur, round ears, but had sharp claws and teeth.

After a long struggle, I somehow managed to be victorious.

When I returned, the chieftain was astonished. It was probably because I was covered in blood. Though most of the blood was the beast’s.
Upon realising that, the chieftain looked terribly relieved. Then he looked as if he had an idea and then he went off somewhere.

He returned with a spear in his hand.

“Hey, I know that Teoporon is strong. Use this from now on.”
“……”

The chieftain said something and held the spear out.

I threw away my pride as a warrior when I left the tribe. So I can’t accept that.

Because I did not accept the spear, the chieftain looked troubled.

Then he tried to convey something with gestures, as always.

First, he pointed at me, flexed his muscles and nodded a few times.
I wonder if he wants to say that he approves of my hunting abilities.

Then he showed his index finger, meaning wife, and his middle finger, meaning daughter, then clenched his fist. Finally, he pounded his chest.

“So, are you trying to tell me to protect my family?”

The chieftain smiled and held the spear out.

Power to protect my family.
And also power to protect the kind young man.

He is telling me to use that power to help.

I felt resolute in a moment.
I accepted the spear.

“——Yes. Now, I acknowledge my master as the ‘great king’ and I shall set forth as a warrior with my spear!”

With feelings of grat.i.tude, I pounded my chest, kneeled on one knee and received the spear.

Here, in these new lands, I became a warrior again, serving a new king.

“I’ll continue to be in your care, Teoporon!”

To the great kings words, I pounded my chest in response.

Though they say these lands are a harsh and remote place, it was paradise for us.

With my wife and my daughter, we continued to live with the great king.

A few years after that, the king got a strong and valiant wife and came to be surrounded by many children, but that is a story for another time.