Kino no Tabi:Volume15 Epilogue

Epilogue 「What it Means to Fight and Die・a」 — Order!・a —

My name is Riku. I'm a dog.

I have long, white, fluffy fur. My face makes me look as if I’m always happy and smiling, but it doesn’t mean that I am. I was just born this way.

My master is Shizu. He is a young man who always wears a green sweater, and who has been traveling by buggy ever since he lost his homeland due to complex circumstances.

Traveling with us is Ti. She's a quiet girl with a fondness for grenades, who has become part of our team ever since she lost her homeland due to complex circumstances.

—

This is a story from when we visited a certain country.

The country sat in the middle of an expansive plain, surrounded by several other small countries that seemed more-or-less the same. They were always at war.

The reason being that they were in a constant struggle for resources.

None of the countries were powerful enough to expand their border walls, so they sent people outside to gather resources. They settled once they found cultivable land and sent the resources back to their home country.

In this swampy region, the war over those precious patches of land raged on without end.

For whatever reason, the rational conclusion, "If we could talk this out, we could reduce our losses," never occurred to the people living here.

Or maybe they just couldn't bring themselves to trust their enemies.

The country we were visiting was one of those, warring for close to 100 years. It was abundantly clear that it wasn't a suitable country to stay in, so Master Shizu decided to leave immediately.

The country we visited before this one was also caught up in a war.

Master Shizu had hoped that this country might be different, that it might be making an effort to stop the war, but unfortunately, that's not at all how it was.

He stocked up on more food and fuel than usual, and took the buggy through the country gates.

—

A short distance beyond the walls, the country's troops were stationed out on the dry, sunny plain.

We had heard about them as we were leaving the country; apparently they had built an encampment outside the country, where they lived and conducted operations.

Both sides of the road were lined with basic tents.

The soldiers were relaxing outside their tents.

I guess they were technically soldiers, but almost all of them were kids. They were boys ranging from 10 to 15 years old.

"Child soldiers, huh," Master Shizu grumbled.

No matter where you go, warfare is almost always a job for young men, but when they're extremely lacking, some countries will take little boys and girls into the service too.

Even then, with volunteers that are passionate about defending their country, it's not easy to send them through military training, teach them to look sharp in their uniforms, provide them with decent equipment and a salary — and actually get them ready to operate as part of a real military force.

Sometimes an army will forcibly conscript kids or even kidnap them, and then brainwash them or get them addicted to drugs in order to make them obey. They can't actually fight without proper training or equipment, so they end up as meat shields for the real soldiers or get used in what are basically just suicide missions. For the army, they're nothing more than simple disposables.

The kids that were staring curiously at the buggy were the latter type.

They wore ragged, dirty clothes that weren't worth calling "uniforms", and they only had sandals for shoes. A lot of them didn't even have sandals. Their weapons were bolt-action persuaders, but again, some of them didn't have those either.

"…" Ti stared at the boys, who were about the same age as her.

The boys stared back at her with empty, ghost-like eyes, and I can't imagine what Ti was thinking at that moment. Master Shizu couldn't know either. Probably no one in the world knows what goes on in Ti's head.

Then, bursting through the tents, "ｘｘｘｘｘ! ｘｘｘｘｘ!"

One of the boys shouted something as he ran out into the road, towards the buggy.

It was impossible to tell what his intentions were, but luckily, he wasn't carrying anything in his hands.

Master Shizu slammed on the brakes to avoid running the kid over, and at the same time, the sharp sound of gunfire echoed into the air.

The boy trembled for a second, and stopped running. A fountain of blood sprayed out of his head, and he collapsed flat onto the ground. He didn't move again.

The boy's blood seeped across the ground, ending his 10-year lifespan.

"All of you, at attention! Those closest, dispose of that body!"

The orders were delivered in an icy voice by a man holding a hand persuader.

He looked to be about 30 years old. His body was chiseled, and he wore a uniform that was decorated with his officer insignia and medals, without a speck of dirt. The boots on his feet were polished to shine.

At the officer's orders, all of the boys within hearing distance jumped as if they'd been whipped, and lined up into formation, standing stiffly upright. A handful of them ran over to the dead body, to clean up the remains of their comrade.

The officer holstered his automatic hand persuader and strode over to the buggy.

"Hello there, travelers. Please forgive that soldier just now." He spoke to Master Shizu with a pleasant smile.

Then he looked over to Ti, "You too, miss. Sorry for scaring you."

"Don't worry about it." Ti looked back into his brown eyes and responded, which was rare for her.

The officer looked at her blankly for a second, and then burst out laughing, "Wahahahaha! Thanks."

The mood around the buggy was lighthearted, while the dead boy's body was carried away, still bleeding from the head.

Master Shizu asked the officer from the driver's seat, "It doesn't really bother me, but did you really need to kill that boy?"

"Of course," the officer replied without hesitation.

"If I had shot him in the leg, he'd need medical treatment. We don't have that kind of medicine or time to waste. Besides, he was being rude to you travelers. The best way to maintain order was to kill him. Furthermore, if I didn't shoot him in the head, the bullet could have gone through and hit one of the soldiers standing behind him."

"…I see."

"He was a bomber, you see. His job would have been to sneak into a bush with a bomb, and then jump out once he sees an enemy vehicle. Not too different from the buggy you all are traveling in. But I hope it doesn't bother you too much. There's a big difference in the weight of their lives and someone like us. I mean, traveler, even you would be willing to kill someone to protect yourself, or your cute kid and doggy, right?"

"…" Master Shizu was silent, offering no rebuttal.

The officer said, "What are we talking out here for? Won't you come to my tent for some tea?"

—

And so, we were led into a large tent.

It was set up quite carefully, at a bit of a distance from the boys' tents. Naturally, none of the filthy boys were anywhere nearby.

The tent was propped up by poles at each of the four corners, providing shade. In the center was a desk, with a chair on one side and two on the other, which were set up just now.

Master Shizu and Ti sat on the side with two chairs, and the officer sat across from them, on the one chair.

There were three boys with clean uniforms in the tent, working as the officer's attendants.

They were superb workers, bringing out tea immediately. They even brought some out for me in a shallow dish. It was quite cold too, how thoughtful.

I sniffed it and sipped a little — it didn't seem to be poisoned. Just delicious tea.

"Aren't they excellent? It's so hard to believe that they used to be the same as that lot from before," the officer laughed.

His words were the only thing that was poisonous.

Looking around, there were only a few people, or rather, adults, wearing the same uniform as him.

"As you can see, this is a child army, under the direction of the handful of us regular army officers," the officer spoke, as if reading my mind. "When a battle breaks out, they'll fight without concern for their own lives. They're the perfect soldiers."

Master Shizu slowly sipped his tea, responding only with, "I see."

"They always follow orders. Well, except for a few defective ones, like that one you ran into earlier," the officer laughed. "Maybe I should give you a demonstration."

He stood up from his chair and passed his hand persuader to one of the child soldiers standing at his side, ready to refill his tea at any time.

The boy took the persuader without flinching, and the man said, "Put it in your mouth and release the safety."

"Yes sir."

Just as instructed, the boy shoved the point of the gun into his mouth.

"Pull the trigger when I say, 'Now!'" the officer instructed.

The boy couldn't speak, so he nodded calmly instead. His eyes were dull, not showing any change in emotion.

The officer grinned and pointed a question at us, "What should I do? It's exactly as you see. Would you like to watch what happens when I give the order?"

"No," Master Shizu said.

The officer turned to the boy and gave his next order, "That's enough. Give me back my persuader. You're soldiers, there's no point in you dying here. You can fight and die once you're on the battlefield!"

The boy took the persuader out of his mouth, flicked the safety back into place, and then wiped it with a cloth before handing it back to his master.

Then the boy said, "Yes sir. We'll fight and die. That's our duty as the soldiers of our country."

"That's right. Good job — No matter the circumstances, you must fight and die! Don't you forget it!"

"Yes sir!"

Finally, the tasteless demonstration was over.

Master Shizu and I sat quietly, drinking our tea, when Ti asked, "How do you make them?"

Maybe she was interested in the boys her age, maybe she noticed how apathetic Master Shizu was acting, or maybe both.

The officer was happy to answer (well, that was the whole reason he invited us in to talk, after all). "Good question, little lady — First, you have to catch them when they're fresh and young."

He spoke as if he was talking about raising fish.

"Our enemies' villages are down in the prairies, and they usually have lots of kids. In order to live there, they need big families to support the villages, you see. When a raid goes well, we kill all of the adults in the village and bring back any kids below 10."

He spoke quite easily about it, for something so dreadful. And the enemy country he was talking about was the one we had been to before this one, where we had heard about their harvesting villages.

"Then we groom them into child soldiers — back in the old days, I hear it was quite the struggle! We had to use brutal torture and brainwashing techniques, it was a lot of work on our part. They say lots of the kids died during their 'education' process too. Apparently capturing their parents alive and making the kids kill them was pretty effective."

The officer took a swig of tea to relieve his dry mouth, and then, reinvigorated, he went back to his story.

"But then all of our troubles were solved 40 years ago, by a wonderful new drug! It lets us wipe their old memories and plant fake ones!"

Yes, how wonderful. Of course, neither Master Shizu nor I said anything like that, but the officer happily continued. Ti and Master Shizu listened quietly.

"After taking that drug, their entire lives until then — their parents, the traditions of their homeland, the idea that hurting people is wrong — everything gets erased. Then you replace it with, 'I was born to fight for the country that raised me. I am an invincible soldier without fear.'"

Is that so?

"And so, the perfect child soldier is born! Fear, defiance, suspicion, they don't know any of it, so when their superior says, 'Charge!' they'll charge, no matter who or what shoots at them. If you tell them, 'Sweep the minefield!' they'll walk up and down the field and clear away the mines by stepping on them. Then we send in our real army afterwards, so our losses are wonderfully low!"

Well of course, when you don't count how many child soldiers you lose.

"As long as we make good use of them, our army has the upper hand. They're a vital tool for us." The officer finished his speech and turned to Ti. "Did that help answer your question, miss?" He didn't address Master Shizu, but then, it was clear on his face that he hadn't really been listening.

"Helped," Ti responded. Then she asked, "When does the drug wear off?"

I've thought this for a while, but Ti's thought process is a bit, no, very different from a normal person's, like mine or Master Shizu's, and you can never predict what she's going to say.

The officer looked at her blankly for a second, and then grinned wide, "You're pretty unique, aren't you, miss! That's the first time anyone's asked me that! Well then, let me tell you. In theory, they say that it wears off somewhere between 15 and 20. After that, they'll form new memories that will push out the existing ones, but you see —"

There's no way a child soldier would ever live that long.

"There's no way a child soldier would ever live that long. For all intents and purposes, it's no problem at all."

"I see. That explains it. Now I understand everything."

Ti was talking an awful lot that day. I don't know what she meant by "that explains it" or "now I understand everything" though.

Master Shizu had stayed quiet this whole time, and still had some tea in his cup. He rose from his seat and said, "Thank you for the explanation. Please excuse us now."

"Why not stay for another cup?" the officer offered, and Master Shizu was trying to make it clear that he wasn't interested, when Ti spoke up.

"Actually, isn't it about time?"

That wasn't directed at Master Shizu, it was for the man in his sharp military uniform, sitting across the desk.

About time?

Between me, Master Shizu, and the officer, none of us knew what Ti was trying to get at.

The man the question was intended for spoke up, "What is it, miss?"

"It's about time."

"And that is? What is?"

"It should be about time for you."

"...Traveler, I don't know what this girl is saying, but is she a bit abnormal?"

No, she's very abnormal. However, it wasn't my place to say that, so I kept quiet.

Master Shizu lowered his arched back and said calmly, "She has a different point-of-view than most people, so sometimes, she'll say something that seems strange. If it bothered you, please allow me to apologize."

"It's fine, I'm not mad or anything," the officer grinned, seemingly unfazed. "I was just thinking she was a bit strange."

He looked at Ti, who was staring intently at him through her emerald green eyes. "What's it 'about time' for? If you can put it into words, I'd love to know."

Just as I was giving up hope that she'd respond to the question, Ti said, "Same eyes."

Oh?

"Hohoh. Who has the same eyes as me?"

"Everyone."

"'Everyone?' What do you mean 'everyone'? Please tell me miss, which 'everyone' has the same eyes as me?"

"…" Ti was quiet for two seconds or so. It was an exceptionally short silence for her. And then she spoke for a miraculously long time.

"All of the child soldiers around here. They have the same eyes as you. Do you remember? The past, do you remember it? Can you clearly remember? Do you really remember? Well? What kind of kid were you? Do you remember? Do you really remember?"

—

It was like a demonic incantation.

—

For three seconds or so, the officer was frozen like ice.

For two seconds or so, he sucked in long, deep breaths.

"Eh? But I'm — I am — I was —"

And then after four seconds, "GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" The man screamed.

Translator’s Notes

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