Chapter 6: Relief (last part)

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It had been hard on the dark elves, of course, but also on the soldiers who had

come a long way and then spent a full day searching. They had already dug out a fair

number of those in need of rescue (some alive, some not).

I thought it would be wise to check in with Wodan to confirm how many people

were still missing. If we could narrow down the number of victims, we could focus

our manpower on searching the area where we thought they would be.

As I was thinking that...

"O Godbeast! Why have you let this happen?!"

...I heard a desperate cry.

When I looked, I saw a young (?) dark elf man who resembled Wodan wailing as

he struck his fists and head against the ground.

Aisha had returned from evacuating the women and children, so I asked her

about him. "Aisha, who is that?"

"That's... my uncle, Robthor Udgard, He's my father's younger brother."

"From the way he's crying and wailing, I guess that means..."

"Yes," she confirmed. "His wife and child, in other words my aunt and her

daughter, have yet to be found."

"That must be... difficult. Are you okay, Aisha?"

"Well, you see... If my father is the head of the liberals, my uncle is head of the

conservatives. I didn't have much contact with them... His daughter was still young

and cute, though, so it pains me to see this happen to her..."

"I see..."

We were well past the 72 hour deadline. If she hadn't been found yet, that

meant...

Then, Robthor looked in our direction. When he saw us, he walked over towards

us, stumbling as he did.

"King... O, king... Why?"

Robthor grabbed me by the lapels, causing Aisha to yell at him, but I motioned for

her to stand down. Rather than gripping them tightly and trying to lift me up, he was

just grasping at them, as if clinging to me. If I simply brushed him away, he would

probably collapse.

"O, king. I have done all I can to protect this forest. So why has it taken my family

from me...?"

I was at a loss for words. I looked over to Aisha.

"My uncle opposed the periodic thinning," she said. "He said it was unthinkable

that dark elves, as protectors of the forest, should cut down trees needlessly. The

place that collapsed was one where we couldn't do periodic thinning because of my

uncle's objections," she explained.

That's... I don't know what to say...

"O, king! Tell me why! Why would the forest I protected destroy my family? If I

had cut down trees like Wodan and his lot, would my family have been spared?!"

"There's... no way to know that," I said.

"No!" he howled.

"True, if you carry out periodic thinning, take care of the undergrowth, and

increase the land's ability to hold water, it's possible to create conditions that reduce

the likelihood of a landslide. However, it only makes it less likely. In a case like this,

where heavy rain over a long period was the cause... It could have happened

anywhere."

"No... You're saying we just had bad luck, then..." he murmured.

"In terms of where the landslide happened, yes. However, periodic thinning

means there's always work going on in the forest. The workers may hear strange

noises, see the forest seeming to shift, and notice other warning signs that a

landslide is about to occur. If they notice, there are things that can be done. People

could have been evacuated."

This has also been said to be an advantage of using mountains for terraced ricefields.

You would think cutting down the trees to make room for rice paddies would

make landslides more likely, but it actually reduces the odds of landslides that result

in human casualties. Because people have to go into the fields all the time, they

quickly notice the warning signs, and that makes it easy to respond. The strongest

countermeasure against landslides is to watch the forest at all times. The elves didn't

have debris flow detection systems like in modern day Japan, so that made having

people on watch all the more important.

"I've protected the forest all this time... was I wrong to do that?" he moaned.

"Your belief that you were protecting the forest was wrong," I said. "Nature's not

so fragile that it needs people to protect it."

Aisha had told me before that the trees in the God-Protected Forest were longlived. That was why they hadn't noticed it had turned into a beansprout forest and

the ground had been weakened. Even though they had simply been lucky that

nothing had happened yet, they'd convinced themselves they were protecting the

forest.

"If it's egotistical for man to destroy the forest, so, too, is it egotistical to try to

protect it," I said. "Nature is meant to go through cycles of death and rebirth, yet

we're trying to keep it in a state that's convenient for us. All people can do is manage

things through periodic thinning, keeping the forest in a state where we can co-exist

with it. Trying our best not to wake it from its slumber."

He seemed speechless.

At that moment, one of my wooden mice discovered something.

"There! I found a parent and child!" I cried.

"Wh-Where?!" he stammered.

"Hold on... They're in a collapsed house ahead and to the left of us, two meters

from the mountain ridge!"

We rushed to the spot, moving the sand and dirt aside. When we did, we found a

little girl and a woman I assumed was her mother in a gap between the collapsed

lumber. The mother was holding her girl tightly, trying to protect her. When Robthor

saw them, he let out a breathless sigh. Clearly, they were his wife and daughter.

When we pulled them out, the woman had already expired.

Just as I was thinking all hope was lost... Aisha raised her voice. "Sire! The child is

still breathing!"

"Get her to the relief team, immediately!" I shouted. "Don't let her die!"

"Understood!"

After wrapping the child in a blanket and seeing her and Aisha off, I looked to

Robthor, who was crying beside his wife's body. I thought maybe I should let him be,

but this man still had things he needed to protect. I couldn't have him stopping here

on me.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, I said quietly, "She protected your daughter to the

very end."

"...Yes..."

"Pull yourself together! It's your turn to do it now!"

He seemed startled. "Yes... Yes...!"

Speaking through sobs, Robthor nodded again and again.

Some time after that, the second relief team that Liscia had gone back to call for

arrived. With the search for all missing persons completed, the advance team was

relieved of their duties.

For the reconstruction work, the more numerous and better-equipped second

team would take over.

After offering one last silent prayer for the fallen, the advance team returned to

the capital. The mud-covered and exhausted members of the advance team were

packed into the container cars like frozen tuna about to be shipped out. Right about

now, Hal was probably resting his head in Kaede's lap and taking a good rest.

I was in a similar state myself, riding in the carriage with Liscia who had come to

pick me up.

We had left Aisha behind in the village. With her homeland in that awful shape,

there was no way she would have been able to focus on her duties. For the time

being, I had told her to wait in the God-Protected Forest.

As I leaned against the window, dozing off...

"I wasn't able to do anything this time," Liscia said sadly.

"You went to call a relief party, didn't you?" I asked. "Everyone worked their very

hardest. Actually... if there's anyone who was unable to do anything, it was me."

"Hardly. I hear you were a great help out there," Liscia tried to reassure me, but I

shook my head.

"I'm the king. In times of crisis, giving commands in the field isn't the king's duty.

A king's duty is to prepare for a crisis before it happens. I... didn't do enough of that."

"That's not..."

"I think the Forbidden Army worked well as a relief unit. Still, there were more

places where I came up short. Means of communication, long-distance shipping,

accumulation of aid supplies in each area, medical teams attached to the relief party,

psychiatrists to treat patients with PTSD... I came up short on all of those things.

Because I was so focused on the food crisis and the issue of the three dukes, I was lax

in my preparations."

I looked at my reflection in the window, covered in mud and wearing an

expression of exhaustion.

Liscia was looking at me with concern, but I pretended not to notice.