Chapter 28: Camouflage

「Well—lately I’ve felt like my body doesn’t move so easy, y’know.」

Lying in bed, Rin said it in a bright voice.

「Don’t lie. There’s no way you didn’t notice.」

In contrast, Nina’s tone was terribly heavy.

「…Nina, what do you mean?」
「There’s nothing to explain.」

With a deep sigh, Nina shook her head with a pained look.

「…This child’s lifespan is about to run out.」
「That’s absurd.」

I brushed those words off with a laugh.

I mean, Rin is only about two hundred years old, right? However you slice it, that’s far too soon. Mermaids should live about five hundred years.

Utai lived roughly that long. Of course, she was exceptionally long‑lived even among mermaids. But half that would be going too far.

「Right… Utai was extraordinarily long‑lived, but an ordinary mermaid still lives to around four hundred.」

Ever since the waterway was built, many mermaids have come to Hiiro. Not a few of them have visited Nina’s clinic. She likely got that information through those channels.

「But that’s talking about mermaids who live in the water—out at sea.」

The shock knocked the breath out of me. I had overlooked something so simple.
She’d always been more energetic than anyone. The idea that living on land could be harmful to her had never even occurred to me.

「But— I mean… Rin is so…」

She did have wrinkles at her neck, but otherwise she still looked as youthful as ever.
But Utai’s figure rose in my mind.
She too had kept her beauty right up until just before she died. That’s the kind of race mermaids are.

「No! Look at her waist fin. It’s so pristine.」

Realizing with a start, I pointed at Rin’s waist fin. Utai’s had been in tatters. A mermaid’s aging should show in the waist fin. If it wasn’t like that, she ought to still have time.

「…That’s why I noticed. Look closely.」

But Nina’s expression darkened even further.
I stared at Rin’s waist fin so as not to miss a single blemish.

「…Ah.」

And then, I realized.

—The numbers didn’t add up.

A mermaid’s waist fin grows thicker and larger one layer at a time with each passing year, like tree rings. That was lacking. Her fin, which should be over two hundred years, had only a little over a hundred no matter how many times I counted.

「So—you were transforming just your waist fin.」
「…Yeah.」

Rin nodded as if resigning herself.

「Geez, Nina‑sensei, you’ve got no delicacy. Exposing my trying to look younger in front of a man? This is why ageless elves are the worst.」
「Don’t joke about it.」

Grinning, Rin tossed it off in a light tone; Nina let out a sigh of resignation.

「If you went back to the sea now you might eke out a little more time… but you’ve no intention of that, do you?」
「Totally! Going back to the sea now would be boring… and besides, I’ve outlived Yuuki and Light Blue by a lot.」

…Ah. True, their lives were short… but calling that unhappy is intolerable. Faced with her saying it like that, there was nothing I could do.

「But… then why not live doing more of what you love? There are plenty of fun, interesting things, aren’t there? Why are you doing village surveys of all things?」
「Mm—. Payback? Sensei let me have so much fun. And if I can meet Ai‑san, who you said was your wife, I’d like to see her too.」

When I cut in without thinking, Rin said that.
Had I… left everything to a child like this and been hesitating over something trivial?

「…All right. I’ll throw myself into the search too. Will you help me?」
「Of course!」

Rin smiled without a care.


* * *


「This is it.」

Rin led me to a small cave a short way from the village.

「Light!」

A light orb was born from the bowl‑shaped cup of Rin’s hands and illuminated the picture drawn on the wall.

「I see… so this is—」

I hadn’t the faintest idea.

I could tell it was a picture—clearly meant to depict some kind of shape.
But…

「It’s pretty bad, huh.」

Exactly. It was incredibly bad.
Ai wasn’t very good at drawing either… but this was worse.

A demon with both arms outstretched… or a crashed rocket.
I couldn’t even tell if it was a living thing or not.

「I don’t know… but I think this is a person.」

Rin lightly pointed to a part drawn near the bottom of the picture.

「A person… huh?」

Now that she said it, it could be a stick figure… maybe… or maybe I was imagining it.

「It’d be nice if anything else had been left, but there’s nothing.」

The cave itself was narrow and small. With just the two of us—Rin and me—crouching inside, it was already full, and it was obvious without even searching that nothing else remained.
If only, instead of a picture, some writing had been left…

「Yeah… there’s only stone.」

Rin knitted her brows, troubled.
But that mutter gave me a brilliant flash of insight.

「That’s it!」

If the mural remained, then of course the wall itself had remained since then. The ceiling connected to it, and the floor too—everything was from that time. In that case—

「O earth. O firm, unshaking, unmoving things. I bestow upon you a name. Earth’s little folk, Gnome—show yourself before me!」

In answer to my spell the ground warped and bulged up, taking on a human shape like clay.
Before long it changed into a little person about fifty centimeters tall.

「Gnome. Tell me—have you been here all along?」

As I asked, almost in prayer, the Gnome gave a nod.

「Do you remember the person who drew this?」

When I pointed at the mural and asked, the Gnome nodded again. Rin and I couldn’t help but exchange glances.

「What kind of person!?」

At that, the Gnome knit its brows as if troubled. After a moment, it shook its head vigorously from side to side.

「…You don’t know?」

Again, the head moved side to side.

「Maybe it can’t speak?」

When Rin said that, the Gnome nodded up and down over and over.