Chapter 93 – The Great Crossing (8)

It was the moment Aylen, who had been training mana on top of the off-roader, headed to the pit to catch a short nap.

Rustle, rustle.

Below that, there were people tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.

They were the six elders of Randolph’s ember who boarded the six-seater off-roader.

“Egugu… as I grow old, sleep doesn’t come. I suppose I am not the only old folk who isn’t sleeping?”

Someone who raised his back with difficulty spoke.

It was a faint voice scattering with exhausted energy, as if his existence had completed its meaning and was fading away.

At that, those who had opened their eyes in the same manner began to open their mouths one by one.

They were precisely the elders who had been unable to fall asleep despite it being late in the night.

“Such groaning… Did you eat all the age by yourself?”

“Leave him be. If that older brother doesn’t act as if he will die tomorrow, perhaps thorns will grow in his mouth.”

“Exactly! More than once or twice in my life did I want to sew that mouth shut.”

Each of the elders spat out a word of bitter remark.

However, compared to their thorny words, their expressions were so peaceful that they were even smiling.

They were those who had lived their entire lives in the same ember from birth until now.

Companions who had burned up the flame of life within a single ember, and were together even now when its heat was fading.

Therefore, thorny words were not a problem in the slightest.

Because they understood each other more deeply than parents.

“Eing, to nag a person like this just because of a single word is so sorrowful. How is there not a single guy on my side, not a single one!”

Knowing that, the elder who had groaned also laughed heartily and grumbled.

Similarly, the other five elders followed him and bloomed a burst of laughter.

In such a friendly atmosphere, the elder continued speaking again.

“Anyway, sitting in this cramped space is suffocating. I feel so restless.”

“What kind of spoiled talk is that?”

“It feels exactly like a coffin inside here. I don’t like it at all as my burial plot.”

At his grumbling, the elder in the adjacent seat spoke, barely rolling his pupils.

“So, older brother Dane, what is the reason you say such things? Although you talk a lot, older brother, you aren’t a figure who says useless things.”

He was the youngest among these six elders.

Even so, as a white-haired elder looking toward the end of life, he was no different from the other elders.

However, Dane, whom he called older brother, was ninety-nine years old, the oldest person in the ember, and was also a long-time close friend of the ancestor Gedolf who established this ember.

No matter how much they were at the edge of life, they could not treat Dane, who was close with the first leader of the ember, carelessly.

“If you have something you want to say, go ahead. Let us hear what it is.”

“Yes, do not drag it out and speak quickly, older brother. I will die waiting.”

As such, the other elders also listened intently to Dane’s mouth.

While it would usually be a lament of their lot with no meaning, they had an intuition that there must be some meaning since the situation was what it was.

While everyone’s attention was focused, the mouth of the eldest, Dane, opened.

“Just… I feel like we old folks are merely occupying seats and gnawing away at the ember. I feel like we are alive without knowing when to step down, tactlessly. Like leeches.”

“…”

“…”

At the self-deprecating voice, the talkative elders closed their mouths.

In fact, it was a thought that all of them had been unable to erase from their minds.

The thought of being a leech-like human, just as Dane said, who became a worn-out elder unable to provide any value to the ember and society, nibbling away at what others had accomplished.

It was not that they had held such self-destructive thoughts from the start.

Because they were the founding contributors of this ember, figures who established the foundation and basis of the city with blood and sweat from the very early days of the ember, which was the most difficult and dangerous period.

Even if they grew old and became worthless humans, they deserved respect and treatment, and it was sufficient for them to have self-pride.

However, when the young men suffered a tragedy from mutants and the ember became endangered; when the plunderers raided and occupied the ember taking advantage of that gap; when they had no choice but to merely watch through the off-roader window as the sick and weary moved their arduous steps during the crossing…

At that time, they discarded the pride and self-respect they had thought they deserved.

They felt their helplessness miserably, thinking that those things were merely useless before the cruel reality… no, they would only be a burden.

Soon, an elder spoke in a voice soaked in deep frustration stemming from incompetence.

“Now we are in the position of old folks in the back room. But if it had been only that, we would not be this miserable.”

“Gary…”

“What truly pains me is that we are taking away what our children should enjoy. The thought of being a leech-like existence, just as you said, older brother, tortures us… tortures me.”

How fortunate it would have been if they were merely helpless.

The elder was seized with immense guilt at the fact that his existence only caused harm to the ember.

And for good reason, as they were receiving all kinds of benefits they could get as they were classified as elderly and weak, even when the situation reached this state.

Even though it was merely being assigned a seat in the off-roader and being conceded some food good for the body.

“Everything should go to the children with bright futures. Not to us, whose days to die are not far off anyway.”

Even that small consideration and concession felt like robbing others of opportunities, resources, and their future.

Furthermore, it was today, when a large number of injured occurred.

It was a day the elders could not help but think about whether they had a proper reason to occupy a seat in the off-roader.

In the heavy silence that descended, Dane opened his mouth.

“I think it is time to leave now. Both this damnably cold world and this tedious life… Hasn’t that time come?”

To leave—there was no one in this place who did not understand the meaning of those words. Everyone was sympathizing with Dane’s words in one mind, and it was also what they had thought themselves.

Was that why? The speed of reaching a conclusion was extremely fast.

“If there is a proper time to leave, it must be right now. I can be certain that it is now.”

“Is it only you? How tedious and cold life has been… I have been waiting for a day like today to come.”

“Hey, older brother, stop pretending to be cool by yourself. Even if you hadn’t spoken, I was planning to do so! So do something about that unlucky expression.”

The elders’ opinions gathered quickly as if they had been one from the beginning.

They prepared for the final journey of life, sometimes criticizing each other, sometimes joking, fussily and also ordinarily.

Even though they were without fear since they already faced death, and conversely, they would be afraid because of that.

Dane, looking at them with eyes full of warmth, spoke.

“Haha, as expected of cranky old men…”

The elders’ hands were trembling pitifully.

Although their lips were forming curves, there was also someone dropping tears from their curved eyes.

However, that was not because they feared death.

What they truly feared was having to leave without even saying farewell to their family and descendants.

If they claimed they would disappear on their own as obstacles, their stubborn family members would absolutely not let them go, so it was merely a reality that had to be.

They had to disappear quietly without a trace for the sake of the ember.

Like snowflakes evaporating in the heat of the Eternal Embers…

“Everyone, do not grieve. Up to here is our role. Disappearing without a trace so that the ember can bloom a new flame. That must be the last mission given to us.”

Dane comforted everyone. His voice was also shaking mercilessly like a lamp before the wind.

Yet his face was sorrowful, detached, and also firm.

It was a solemn and lighthearted expression that only one who had devoted their everything to the ember could show.

“Follow well. Since it is the last time, it would be even better to go holding hands tightly.”

Clack!

With those words as the last, Dane opened the door of the off-roader.

Whoosh!

At the same time, the biting wind growing harsher day by day rushed into the interior of the off-roader.

“…”

The snowstorm whipped fiercely against the elder’s face.

However, Dane did not raise his hand or wear a hat to avoid it.

He was more confident than ever before the merciless Boundless Great Snow.

Crunch.

Two thin legs left with only bones stepped down onto the white snowfield.

The two legs moved slowly but steadily, beginning to make long footprints in the direction completely opposite to the campsite.

Soon, the five noisy elders got off following Dane and began to run toward him.

“Where is this older brother trying to go first again? I might not know about being born, but as for going, I will go first!”

“Hey, stop doing cool things alone. Older brother, come together!”

“Tsk, tsk, the temper of old folks… Since we are going to die together anyway, can’t we just walk side-by-side!”

Running and running to finally stand side-by-side, they faced each other with countenances where all kinds of emotions crossed, as if hating each other, as if liking each other.

Since they were running toward the end, they could not help but have a thousand emotions crossing.

Indeed, would the relationship between the predecessor and successor generations who pass down and inherit the ember be like this?

Squeeze.

Already, their hands were connected as one, becoming an unbreakable link.

That was precisely the link that even death could not sever.

“Thank you all for being together until the end. And… it was an honor to be together for a lifetime.”

The elders, holding hands, finally turned their backs on the ember they had established and began to move forward.

The front was the end, yet simultaneously the future, so there was no hesitation in their steps.

They did not weep or grieve anymore.

Because they knew that only by doing so could the ember advance.

The elders gradually drew further away from what they had established.

There was no send-off.

* * *

The morning of the day they met the first raid of mutants.

The campsite was submerged in confusion and grief greater than at dawn.

The sight I saw upon waking from a short nap was truly pandemonium.

“Dane, Grandpa Dane is…!”

“W-What about the others?!”

“No one is here, no one!”

“Aigo! Just where did you go, elders…!”

The six elders who supported the ember along with Randolph disappeared without a trace during the dawn.

At the commotion, the expedition conducted a search operation utilizing the off-roaders with Sullivan, the hunter, as the main pillar, but

“…It is already too late.”

“You say it is late when it has only been one or two hours since they disappeared?”

“Look at the weather. It is a weather where footprints would disappear immediately after being stamped. There is no trace or clue that can be tracked.”

“…”

Despite strenuous efforts, they could not find them in the end.

Although the increasingly rough weather was one factor, it was because the elders had vanished truly without a trace, without even leaving a will.

To the point where even I, who possessed a mana core, could not track them…

However, everyone knew the reason the elders left.

The six seats in the six-seater off-roader left by those elders.

The only legacy they left behind was there.