What keeps lone travelers company through the night? Can a sliver of moonlight and the whispering stars soothe their loneliness? And if that is enough, what can soothe the weariness of life?

At least Valeri had Snow for now, though Snow was asleep on his side.

Half reclining against the horse’s belly, Valeri gazed into the campfire. Night in the forest was darker than night elsewhere, making the flames seem unusually bright.

CRACKLE. SNAP. CRACKLE...

For some reason, Valeri kept thinking of the people of Belfort weeping in one another’s arms. They had looked as though they had lost everything, yet in another light, as though they had gained everything.

Did overwhelming happiness resemble overwhelming sorrow? Where did feelings that intense come from, and how? He could not quite understand.

He thought of the people he had known: Earl Æthelred, Lady Sibild, Harald, Gidwin, Knut, Arne.

Would they weep for him if he returned alive after they thought him dead? Perhaps it was a childish thought, but that was precisely where Valeri felt his loneliness.

There was no one. No one in the world who would weep for him.

They might shed a few tears, but no one would embrace him and sob as the people of Belfort had. Nor did he want to beg anyone to cry for him.

The wish to die rose suddenly within him.

Still, one thing had improved: he no longer wanted to hurt others first, to put an end to this accursed bloodline before dying himself.

He wanted to go somewhere deserted, be forgotten by everyone, and die without anyone knowing, where no one could find his body and not the slightest trace would remain of his existence in this world.

The people around him might have helped his wounds heal a little, but the hole that had always been in his heart remained utterly unfilled.

The campfire shone in Valeri’s pale sky-blue eyes, but his heart was pitch-black, without a single point of starlight.

He closed his eyes. Better to close them. To sleep as though dead. Nothing could be better than never waking again.

Valeri woke to the feeling of someone licking his face.

He heard birds singing in the forest, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the cold remains of the campfire. It was a bright morning. Golden sunlight split around the branches and struck the ground in shafts, like cords linking heaven and earth.

If morning had reached even the depths of the forest, he must have slept quite late. Snow had licked him awake because he simply would not get up.

Still, it was remarkable that he had slept so long in such an uncomfortable spot. He always woke at dawn, wherever he slept. It struck him as a little careless, but then again, what did it matter?

Last night’s melancholy had lost its strength, like the cold campfire. He did not know who had first said that sleep was the best medicine, but surely that person had been a sage.

Valeri sat up and drank some water first. He tipped his canteen to splash a little over his face, then had something to eat: smoked ham, dried fruit, and grain flour soaked in honey and dried.

He gave Snow plenty of dried barley and bean stalks, followed by a few carrots, then checked his equipment. He inspected his sword’s edge, wiped the blade of his battle-axe, tightened his belt again, and fastened his cloak.

Finally, he put Snow’s tack on, but did not mount. Instead, he walked east along the forest path.

Before long, he came to a fork with a stone marker.

<By order of the Duke of Eldeira, authorized personnel only beyond the right-hand path.>

Reading it, Valeri realized that the right-hand path led into the rangers’ territory. As a patrol officer, he certainly qualified as authorized personnel. He took the path to the right.

Birdsong and the tapping of woodpeckers reached him from near and far. With the birds so active, there seemed to be no monsters about, at least.

After perhaps an hour or two of walking, he heard a dog barking. Sure enough, it was barking at the sound of his footsteps.

WOOF! WOOF!

Soon he spotted a cabin in the forest, with a stream running right beside it. It seemed to be a ranger hideout.

The dog was near the cabin, untethered. Since it made no move to charge him, it was probably barking to alert its master.

At his faithful servant’s barking, the master emerged from the cabin. Whether he had slept late or been taking a nap, his hair stuck out at odd angles. His shaggy hair and beard made his age difficult to guess.

The first thing he noticed was the enormous warhorse. Then the tall young man leading it. Or was he a boy? He tilted his head, but then caught sight of the cloak clasp. A territorial patrol officer.

“Uh... hello. Hey, you, I’m out here now. Stop barking.”

The man appeared to be a ranger, and at his command, the dog really did stop barking.

Apparently feeling awkward, he merely stood there fidgeting with his hands after his greeting.

“Well... what shall we do? Would you like to come inside?”

A ranger’s profession was a lonely one. They had a few colleagues, but with a vast area divided among them, they only met occasionally.

In short, they knew little about entertaining guests, showing proper respect to superiors, or dealing with people at all.

“Well, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh? Aren’t you going to tie up your horse?”

“He’ll be fine.”

“If you say so...”

Before entering the cabin, Valeri petted the dog. It seemed to like people by nature. Though it had been barking furiously a moment ago, now it was wagging its tail wildly and rolling over to expose its belly.

It also seemed excited by the horse, as though it had found a new friend.

The dog’s physical and mental health gave him some reason to believe its master was a decent person.

Inside, the cabin lacked the bachelor’s stink he had expected. Instead, it was filled with the scent of wood, overlaid with fragrant herbs. Indeed, all sorts of herbs hung drying from the ceiling.

Several unstrung bows lay about. Wood shavings on the floor suggested that the ranger made arrows whenever he had time, and one container was full of them.

There was a hearth as well, with a pot over a low fire. Its contents were being kept hot rather than bubbling away.

“Sit wherever you like,” the ranger said.

He seemed intent on putting together a meal, ladling some of the pot’s contents into a wooden bowl and bringing out various other things, mostly forest fare such as pine nuts, wild berries, and mushrooms.

He crumbled a thoroughly dried herb over the porridge and offered it to Valeri.

“As you can see, this is how I live. I can’t offer you anything grand.”

Valeri had taken the edge off his hunger that morning without eating his fill, so he accepted without protest and drank the soup.

Truly, without exaggeration, it was the most delicious thing he had eaten since returning to the past. What was this savory, salty flavor, this subtle aroma of meat mingling with fragrant herbs?

He could not tell whether the meat was rabbit or venison, but there was meat in it, along with mushrooms and all sorts of other ingredients. It was nourishing, too.

Eating a wild berry now and then between mouthfuls made it utterly exquisite.

“This is the finest meal I’ve had in my life,” Valeri said.

He meant it, and only then did the ranger offer a faint smile.

“It all comes straight from the forest. Food spoils on the journey to the city, doesn’t it?”

Indeed, apart from those prosperous enough to eat well, most city dwellers were poorly nourished.

The ranger served him another bowl and sat across the table. Now enjoying his soup at a more leisurely pace, Valeri asked, “How long have you lived here?”

“Let’s see. I’m twenty, perhaps twenty-one, so about that long?”

“Is this work passed down through the family?”

“Ha! Through the family? Nothing could be further from a ranger’s life than raising a family. People drift into it, or fate chooses them, or they’re abandoned and someone raises them. That’s right, I was one of the abandoned ones. Old Mills brought me up. What to eat and what not to eat, hunting, how to make, maintain, and shoot a bow, what to watch out for, when to retreat, how to live with the seasons. Those are the things he taught me. Has it been five or six years now? He’s dead.”

On a post in one corner of the cabin were horizontal knife marks at varying heights. They looked like a record of a growing child’s height.

At a certain point, the marks stopped. Perhaps that was when Mills had died.

“An old man raising a child. Looking back, I wonder how he managed it. A ranger, of all people, going around begging nursing mothers for milk. I got so sick of him always treating me like a child and worrying about me...”

Watching the low fire, the ranger seemed to sink a little into his memories.

“Before we go on, what is your name? I’m Wid.”

“Squirrel. A little large for a squirrel, aren’t I?”

“Mine means weed, so we’re much alike.”

“Are we? There are no weeds in the forest. That’s a notion farmers have.”

It was a perspective he had never considered. Though Wid was not even his real name, it had always made Valeri somewhat uncomfortable. Hearing the ranger’s words, he felt that discomfort fade.

“What exactly does your work entail?”

“Well, I’m a sort of forester posted far from home. You know, a gamekeeper. It’s similar, only a little more dangerous, though when you think about it, there’s nothing particularly dangerous about it. I don’t know. I suppose we just keep an eye on how things are going. Did you know this? People fear and hate wolves, but it’s actually the wolves that keep goblins from coming into human settlements. That’s the sort of thing we watch. Whether wolf numbers are rising or falling, whether wandering goblins have been spotted, what changes there are among the other plants and animals, whether wild folk are settling in. Things like that. If another domain bordered us directly, we’d have to watch for suspicious movements there as well, but as you know, no army can pass through this forest. No one’s ever ventured that deep into it.”

“No witches or the like?”

“Hahaha! If there were, they’d have married a ranger and borne ten children by now.”

“Then what about the carpenter of Thunder Forest? Isn’t there a band of carpenters near here?”

“A band of carpenters? Ah... I think you’d be better off leaving those people alone...”

There were bands of itinerant craftsmen in the world: smiths, stonemasons, and carpenters among them.

Whereas Belfort’s people lived together in an outpost village, these craftsmen formed communities that lived on the move, finding work and earning money to support themselves.

Squirrel watched Valeri’s reaction before continuing.

“I only know what the old man told me. They say the carpenters of Thunder Forest were all valiant Vikings once. There were two great wars long ago, and those men survived them. Perhaps they supported a different prince and lost? Naturally, I don’t know the details. The important thing is, they aren’t people to take lightly. As far as I know, even the duke leaves them alone.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I didn’t ask because I have anything against them or want to pick a fight.”

“Hmm... you seem like a good man, sir. I don’t think you’d do anything bad for no reason. Still, there’s really no need for me to tell you where they are. You’ll see them as soon as you get near Thunder Forest. They don’t live in complete isolation.”

“Is that so? Then how far is Thunder Forest from here? No, how much farther until I’m out of this forest?”

The forest Valeri was passing through marked the boundary between Nordlanding and Krischer.

“If you hurry, you should reach Hemsley village before sunset.”

“I see. Is there anything else troubling you or making life difficult?”

“Difficult? It’s always people. Nature doesn’t trouble me.”

“People?”

“Oh, well...”

“You can tell me. I have some discretion. I know what I can repeat and what I should keep to myself.”

“Oh, it’s nothing much. You know the tax collector? The viscount’s tax collector.”

Those who held multiple earldoms, such as dukes and margraves, would appoint viscounts to administer lands they could not oversee themselves. Strictly speaking, a viscount was not a hereditary title, but its authority was equivalent to an earl’s.

Krischer was administered by a viscount appointed by the duke.

“What about the tax collector?”

“We don’t normally pay taxes. But the new tax collector has started coming even to us, giving us all sorts of strange orders. Fetch him antlers, dig up truffles, things like that. We ignored him, but he comes around now and then, and his threats keep getting worse.”

The rangers served directly under the duke, so a viscount’s tax collector had no authority to order them about.

But as anywhere people lived, things did not always proceed according to the rules.

Whether the man had some extraordinary nerve or simply looked down on the rangers because they lived in isolation, he seemed to be throwing his weight around.

“I’ve talked it over with the others. If he pulls that shit one more time, we’ll kill him in the forest and pretend we know nothing.”

He might seem rather guileless and have treated Valeri well, but rangers were by no means people to trifle with.

“No. I’ll look into it, so hold off for now. I should be going before it gets too late. Thank you for the soup.”

“Take these with you. Something to nibble on along the way.”

As Valeri rose, Squirrel gathered some small pouches for him. They contained powdered herbs, dried fruit, pine nuts, smoked meat, and the like.

Valeri accepted them gratefully and left the cabin. Snow and the dog were standing close together, having become friends at some point.

To make better time, Valeri mounted Snow. He raised a hand to Squirrel, who raised his own in farewell.

The man knew little of etiquette, but he was not bad.

Just as Valeri traveled with Snow for company, Squirrel lived in the forest with his dog.

It seemed everyone had their own way of coping with loneliness. Perhaps even someone with a black hole in his heart, without a single point of starlight, could find his own way to live.

But Squirrel had someone called Old Mills living on in his heart. It seemed he endured the cold of loneliness with the warmth of the campfire that was the old man’s love.

Valeri envied him a little for that.