North x Northwest

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Epilogue Chapter 363

Epilogue 2: Sawa

“But you have one on your back, too?”

Lil couldn’t understand how someone could afford to draw such an unusual scene while having a monkey hanging from his neck and still wet from the river. Nonetheless, Ed smiled brightly and held out the charcoal towards her.

“It suits you well.”

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“Are you going to keep on talking nonsense?”

Still, Lil didn’t bother interfering with Ed’s hobbies. So, she sat still until she yawned. It was similar to the times she ventured outside with Lumiere, Ed would follow her without even asking about her destination.

Monkeys flocked around her one by one. One sneaked up and ate the grass next to her. Lil ripped up some more grass and gave some to one of the animals. Its baby-like fingers picked it up and brought it to its mouth. She knew not to mess with wild animals, so she didn’t take their interactions any further.

The sketch was finished just before the bored animal fled away. Lil looked up at the sky. The sun, which had just begun to turn red, was gradually setting.

“What do you think?”

On the right side of the sketch, Lil was depicted with a monkey in her arms. The monkeys who arrived later grazed leisurely next to her. On the left side was the sky with the setting sun and the river flowing across the meadow. She noticed that beneath the brim of her hat, she wore a smile that she didn’t even know she had.

“I was smiling like this?”

“Yup.”

Drawings like these were often painted on canvas after returning to Roahn. While Lil looked through the album and reflected on her experiences in the jungle so far, Ed put together a complicated device to boil clean water. Lil then lay down on the grass, watching him finish his task, until she realised that she seemed to be lazing around too much. So she helped gather some hay for the fire before packing her gun and crossbow.

Just as she was about to depart to go hunting, Ed placed a leaf from a broadleaved tree larger than his face on Lil’s hat and explained.

“Those birds can snatch people, so you’d better camouflage yourself.”

At the same time, Ed draped a plant stem over her shoulder. After adjusting her hat, Lil began to descend the hill, intending to hide behind a suitable bush.

Whenever they travelled, Lil would hunt while Ed cooked. The reason for this division of labour was simple. Lil was an excellent hunter, but she lacked culinary skills. Ed, on the other hand, had spent years wandering the wilderness, so he knew how to prepare his own meals. He could skilfully separate meat from bones and season an animal’s organs in an incredible way. Furthermore, cooking was a laborious manual task. Ed would feel fine even after crossing the length and breadth of the jungle, but Lil, who was unfamiliar with the Western Continent, needed to conserve her stamina.

Lil concealed her presence as much as possible as she moved down the hill. The rivers in the grasslands were a gathering place for all kinds of animals from the Western Continent, so the types were very diverse, from birds as small as crows to animals with huge noses and ears.

Cries of various forms of life mixed together and howled.

All Lil needed to do was choose an animal she could transport without much effort. She cocked her crossbow from behind the waist-high bushes. She then crouched to her stomach and was about to fire the crossbow, when something suddenly grabbed her back.

“…Huh?!”

Lil was briefly perplexed as to what was happening. She didn’t realise something had grabbed her until her toes were lifted off the ground. The hat and palm trunks she had worn to conceal herself fell to the ground. Raising her head, she could only see the beast’s shadowy belly. Lil reached over her back and fumbled frantically for whatever was clutching her.

‘Claws! Like that of a giant bird…’

Lil realised it intuitively. What snatched her was the bird used by the warrior clan. As the bird soared, the land moved further and further away.

“Aaaahhh!”

Lil couldn’t even open her eyes properly at the speed at which the creature cut through the air. The wind rushed in, chilling her still-wet body. The beast, carrying Lil, flew past the heads of a herd of antelopes, and the tall antelope horns were so close that they almost scraped against her legs. A shadow with both wings spread wide appeared on the red ground. The bird was much bigger than Lil had ever imagined. The animals below were startled by the appearance of the powerful predator and began to flee into the jungle, pounding the grassland like thunder with the sound of tens of thousands of footsteps. A group of monkeys screamed loudly and quickly ran away to the other side of the hill.

Lil noticed Ed running down the hill, flailing his limbs. He appeared to have moved quickly after spotting the bird and was searching for her.

Lil called out to him with all her might.

“Edgar!”

Ed, who was cutting through the meadow, suddenly raised his head.

“Liloa?!”

Ed aimed his rifle, but allowing Lil to fall from a bird in the sky was already dangerous enough. Not to mention the herd of large animals running wild beneath her. If she fell now, she would be stepped on or, worse, impaled by an animal’s horn. Ed retracted his gun, slung it over his shoulder, and ran even faster.

“Liloa!”

He leapt towards a striped horse and climbed on its back. The wild horse neighed loudly and ran at full speed to shake him off.

Meanwhile, Lil aimlessly pointed her crossbow overhead before deciding to drop her weapon. She assumed it would be difficult for any creature, whether human or animal, to show her mercy if they were hurt first. So in the end, she pulled out her dagger, deciding it was better to rip her shirt and fall somewhere.

‘Now is the time. There are no animals beneath me.’

However, just as she had concocted the supposedly perfect plan, the dagger she was holding was hit by something and fell out of her hand.

Lil looked to her side, but while she initially couldn’t see anything, another arrowhead instantaneously flashed before her eyes, serving as a warning that her next attempt would lead to her sudden death. Realising that her opponent wasn’t just a lone warrior bird, Lil raised both her hands in surrender, facing the pouring wind.

“…Liloa!”

Ed’s shouts persisted until she could no longer hear him. Soon, her body flew over the river. Leonard, the giant river that divided the Northern Island, was gurgling, carving deep into the terrain. The several waterfalls pouring in from the east and the west made the flow of the river more than rough. The water was almost white as it was joined by countless waterfalls. The splashing water droplets and thick fog over the river drenched Lil’s face and body anew.

Beyond the river, another meadow came into view. What was different from the grassland was that Lil could see buildings and a temple. The low-rise buildings were all greyish-red and hundreds of them gathered together in a wide meadow to form a village. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the buildings, and children were playing in the fields.

People gathered in front of a tall building as if they recognized the bird holding Lil. The round building surrounded by stone columns was similar to the temples seen only in imperial tales. Incidentally, the bird was also turning directly toward said temple.

Lil eventually felt her ankles brush up against the leaves of a tall palm tree. The leaves skimmed over her knees, then her thighs, until she could tell the difference between the gravel on the ground and the grass. Just as she was about to crash, the bird quickly released her.

Lil immediately rolled on her side to reduce the impact.

Perhaps because the overall situation was unfamiliar to Lil, but even the feeling of grass sticking to her body was completely foreign. She quickly got up, took a deep breath, and frantically looked around her. She had to shake her head vigorously as her focus point wasn’t clear. Meanwhile, her heart felt like it was going to burst due to nervousness…

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