From afar I could hear Heon’s howl echoing, which I knew was suggesting we urge our pace.

A small "atchoum" reverberated behind me.

"Are you okay?"

To my question, I received no more than a nod.

The more an environment is at altitude, the colder and more likely it will be influenced by seasons such as winter.

We were currently tasting that head-on. We were currently traveling, this time not southward but rather toward the place where we fought against Nia’s father.

When whatever happened happened and both of us lost consciousness, Heon transported us to the location that had served as an encampment for the previous two days.At first, I thought the place was a spot in the forest not-so-far away from our battling ground. But it seems I was wrong. There was an enormous distance between the two places, and now we were paying the fee for having to travel that much.

We had marched to this place as soon as the sun rose, and now we were in the middle of the afternoon. So needless to say, it was quite a trip, especially for someone like Nia, who, if I believed what she narrated, had travelled this much back when she was still with her father.

Yet, she voiced no complaint, in fact, it was for her that we were making this detour.

Soon, despite the pace at which we were walking, we reached a place that I recognized to be in the vicinity of where we battled Nia’s father, but something was different. It was nothing but a giant wasteland now, with no sign of life for a good dozen miles. The place wasn’t particularly alive with Solomon’s barrier, but here it was completely barren.

As such, before, I decided to take what I knew I would need: a giant tree trunk.

From there, it must have been a strange sight for anyone to witness, a boy transporting a tree trunk as if it were a pillow on one arm.

We kept on walking until we reached the place where her father died, at which point Heon was already waiting for us.

But once again, something was very different. There was no doubt that this was the place our battle took place, but there was no trace of the egg-shaped thing we found Nia in here.

And since I, just like Nia, was knocked unconscious, I had no way to explain where that thing could’ve gone.

Suddenly, not so far away, something attracted my attention.

I immediately walked toward the place and found scraps of Solomon's initial armor and shield scattered here and there, but beside this armor, something else attracted my attention.

Buried on the ground, I recognized an object, for I had almost had my body chopped in half by it not long ago, not only once but at several reprises.

It was Solomon’s sword.

I pulled out the sword from the ground, it was completely intact. I turned to Nia.

"I don’t know what happened to the egg-shaped thing, but will it be, okay?"

I am not sure if she understood what I said, but just as I did, she was also confused as to what happened to it, but she nonetheless announced, with a mere nod, that it would still be okay.

***

After having found the sword, I started, with Nia’s help, to gather the scattered and wrecked belongings of her father.

In the middle of the nowhere that this place has become, I disposed of the last wooden log that I extracted from the earlier giant trunk, onto something that one could assume would be the foundation of a giant bonfire.

It was finally done. From afar, the dusky sky was shining with the last sunlight of the day.

Yesterday, when I proposed to her to join us for the rest of our journey, she requested something, and that something was this, a funeral.

Having lit a torch, I handed it to her, then brought all the scraps of Solomon’s belongings on top of the altar-like thing that was this bonfire. Having done that, I went to grab Solomon’s sword with the intent of also putting it along with the other object, but was stopped by Nia.

"Ça ira pour l’épée."

I wasn’t sure whether it was perfectly accurate, but from what I understood of it, she pretty much said that it would be fine for me to keep the sword or something like that.

But just to confirm, I asked, "Is it really okay?"

"Oui."

With that, I withdrew to the sideline.

"Toutes ces années, tu as toujours été à mes côtés, même en aillant oublier ton existence, je ne me suis jamais sentie seule, tout ça parce que tu étais là, aujourd’hui, tu ne l'es plus. Il n'y a pas à dire que tu me manques, mais cette fois c’est différent de l’autre fois, je ne t’oublie pas, tu m’as donné la chance que j’ai n’aurai jamais pu avoir, pour, pour avoir été un père, pour tous les sacrifices que tu as fait pour moi, Merci. "

<"All these years, you have always been by my side. Even when I forgot about you, I never felt alone. All because you were there. Today, you are no longer. I miss you, but this time is different; I don't forget you; you gave me a chance that I would not have had otherwise. For being a father, for all the sacrifices you made for me, thank you. " >

She approached the thing, then walked slowly in a circle three times around the bonfire, while saying, in a very incantation-like manner, "Puisse tu retrouver route vers ceux qui ont été chèrs de ton vivant dans l'au-delà.", then made another three tours, "Je n’ai pas eu la chance de les rencontrer. Mais je suis sûr qu’avec eux tu est entre de bonne main," then made another last tours around the altair before saying with teary voice this said, "Puissions nous retrouver, un jour, quelque part." Before setting the whole thing ablaze with the torch.

I'm not sure what the first two sentences she said meant, but I could tell that the last one meant something along the lines of "May we meet again somewhere."

She then did something that I quite didn’t expect. The ring from her father that I gave her yesterday was tossed onto the fire. Then she started breaking down on the ground, sobbing and crying big tears with no concern at all. It was different from before. This time she was crying, too, I suppose, like anyone having lost someone important to them would.

What the hell did I just witness?!

Generally, I would feel awkward at this scene given in the corner, but strangely, I didn’t feel it that way. Instead, I felt a strange feeling that I couldn’t quite put into words.

For a moment, I told myself, "Screw looking like a hypocrite." I approached her, then patted her shoulder.

To be honest, I was not sure about this whole thing, but this was her request.

Back then, when she explained the thing to me, I could more or less assume that it was some sort of funerary ritual.

I once read that there were people burning the remains of their deceased.

Nobles simply don’t because of their constitution and the way their bodies are handled upon death. In fact, the idea of a corpse being badly vandalized or badly handled is simply unbearable, so needless to say, a cremation was a big "NO" for them.

But here, there was no corpse, so I couldn’t really understand the point of this.

There are no corpses, so I kind of don’t see the point of this.

I did bury the siblings, but only because it would be disrespectful to leave their corpses the way they were.

"Well, who are we to judge? Besides, aren’t funerary rites more for the living than for the dead themselves? To me, this looks more like a way for the living to bid their farewell than a send-off for the deceased to the great beyond. "

"Parting ways with the dead, huh. I know it’s cheap coming from someone like me,... but that was fast. "

From what I learned from her stories, her father was the only one for her. Isn’t this going too-

"-Fast? Well, I suppose it’s easier to bid one’s farewell, if you don’t hold anyone responsible for the defunct death. And my guess is that this whole thing is for her, an attempt to let go of the past, to move on. After all, she’s supposed to journey with us, and you know what, we are to her father. She might as well stop holding us accountable, but... I don’t know how to put it, but it’s like this ritual is for her to say to herself that her father is gone now, that there is no such duty to avenge him, or something like that. "

"Do you mean that she is forcing herself to?"

"I suppose that, in a way, she is. But whether or not she is, it is and remains her choice. It’s not like we forced her. It is her own decision to put herself forward to move on. "

With that, we sat till dawn. It took that much for the fire to settle and wither to ash. From the giant bonfire from yesterday, there was nothing left but ash.

Nia tried to wait for the fire to go out but somehow ended up falling asleep next to Heon, whereas I well, I wasn’t particularly in the mood to sleep, so I ended up staying up during the entirety of the night. "

I stood up and made my way to the ashes as the first rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon.

From the still warm and smoking ashes, I retrieved the ring. In appearance, it hadn’t even slightly changed or been altered by the fire.

I guess it made sense given who the ring originally belonged to.

From behind me, I heard a yawn from Nia, who was visibly waking up from her sleep, which also caused Heon's, whom she was lying against, to wake up and stand up, leaving Nia alone on the ground.

Her stare first went to me, then went to the ashes of the ground next to which I was crouched.

I stood up and went, this time crouching right in front of her.

"Hi... or "bonjour, was it?" Sadly, or maybe thankfully, the fire wasn't enough to alter the ring, let alone fully destroy it. "

I said as I presented the ring that I recovered from the ashes.

From my very unique clothing, I retrieved a strap of something formerly known as my appendages. Over the years, more and more of my appendages were lost, and with every battle I fought with them, I was left with only this, just a piece of appendage, long and large enough to make a belt.

From a scrap of the last piece of my appendage, I created a string, to which I attached the ring on it to form a necklace.

"I will not pretend to know how you feel or what this ceremony was supposed to be for you. I’m here to assume that it was for you to let go of your father, but personally, I do think it doesn’t have to be this rushed. I think letting go of the dead is something one should do when one is perfectly ready for it, unless, of course, it is really ruining your life, but otherwise, I think you should take your time. " I said before putting the necklace on.

"After all, sometimes a ghostly companion is better than no companion at all, isn’t it? And as for whether or not you want to avenge your father, feel free to try. But just, don’t do it when I’m sleeping."

Regarding what I did, she said nothing, but I felt her glare on me, then she said, "Merci."

I wasn’t sure as to what "mercy" meant, but it didn’t sound like she took what I did negatively, which would be pretty much understandable, I myself didn’t know why I did what I did.

"Heon."

" …"

"Qu-... Eeeeh!!!!"

Seeing what I meant, Heon snatched Nia away with her mouth, then tossed her onto her back. My signal was that we were finally ready to continue this journey.

I raised Solomon's sword, which, with its over-lengthy blade, was a little too big for me, at least for the time being, and rested it over my shoulder.

Then I announced to Nia, and to Heon's as well, "For the time being, we are still pretty much strangers to each other. Despite having learned how things happened for us, what circumstances led us to this place, and despite the whole thing we narrated to each other, there is not much we know about each other. We do not even speak the same language. There are even a few of us that simply can not speak. But over time, we will learn. So let’s try to get along. "

"Oui." She responded with a nod.

With that, we marched once again toward where we always marched.