Editing Tales of Leo Attiel:Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 2===


Kuon was born and raised south of the Kesmai Plains, at the foot of what was known, in the principality, as the Fangs Mountain Range. The settlement that existed there naturally had its own distinctive beliefs and culture, separated as it was from the outside by rugged peaks.

It was also for that same reason that neighbouring countries did not send armies against it. Less prudent powers, however, had time and time again attempted to invade. Criminals chased out from their own countries, bandits, as well as nobles or generals who had fallen into ruin had all tried to break into those isolated lands and turn them into their new stronghold.

And each time, the young men from the village picked up their weapons and fought back.

While the overland route was almost inaccessible, they had built a port in the bay, and through this, they had some – very limited – contact with the outside, which meant that they held a large number of weapons, including swords and guns.

Most of those who lived by the mountain remained there for their entire life. They naturally had the advantage of terrain and they were subject to none, so their sense of independence was unusually strong compared to people from other lands. They banded together with terrifying solidarity whenever anyone from the outside threatened their families, their livelihood in the mountains, or tried to defile the sanctuary to Tei Tahra, the mountain god.

Kuon was born a member of those ‘mountain people’. However, as he himself had once said, he was not a ‘pureblood’ from the mountains.

At one time, a mercenary from ‘outside’ had strayed into the tribe’s bay.

The man had apparently been on the losing side of a naval battle, and had drifted for many days in a small boat, until he had washed up in their gulf by chance. The tribe’s punishment for entering their land without permission was death, but because the man was so haggard and emaciated, and because the tribe head wanted information about the war that had taken place on the southern sea – there was, after all, the fear that trouble might come to them – he was allowed to recuperate in the village for a while.

A few months later, the man had recovered and, perhaps fearing that he would killed by these barbaric savages, he fled the mountain under cover of darkness.

Yet by that time, one of the women of the tribe was carrying his child.

That child was Kuon.



They were a people who had built a world for themselves and, for a very long time, no foreign blood had entered it. Mother and child were, of course, treated harshly. They were entirely forbidden from taking part in the village ceremonies, and were never invited to other houses.

Whenever Kuon wandered around, playing by himself, if other children of the same age caught sight of him, they would jeer at him –

“Look, it’s Kuon.”

“Only half his blood is human. He was born when an evil spirit impregnated his mother.”

Their tribe believed that a person’s forehead was the doorway to their soul. And since good and evil spirits were constantly feuding in the mountains, the people feared that the evil spirits would enter someone’s forehead and control their body like a soul would, turning them into ‘betrayers’ who harmed the tribe. Because of that, members of the tribe marked their foreheads with a protective charm. On each and every one of them, the shamans who served as priests tattooed a red, oval-shaped bead surrounded by an intricate pattern.

If the tattoo was given to a young child, however, it was said that, “it will hinder the influence of the good spirits, and will stunt the child’s growth,” so the tattoo was permitted only to those who had come of age and who had their own families.

Still, the balance between good and evil spirits varied considerably according to time and season. Once a year, Tei Tahra’s protection weakened, and evil spirits were said to proliferate within the mountains; it was only during that time that children were allowed to wear charms. Early in the morning, their father would lift them onto his lap and paint the protective pattern on their forehead with red dyes.

Only Kuon’s forehead remained bare at those times. Women were forbidden from drawing the amulets against evil spirits. He had no father, and he and his mother were estranged from her relatives, so there was no one to draw the charm for him.

And so, the children taunted him more than ever.

“If you touch him, evil spirits will come for you!” They said as they hurled stones at him.

Kuon had been hot-tempered ever since very young, and he threw stones back. While they were running away, screaming with excitement, he caught them and deliberately struck them on their hated foreheads. He was, of course, at an overwhelming numerical disadvantage. Even more importantly, he did not have a single friend. The other children quickly surrounded him, punching and kicking him to their heart’s content. Kuon was covered in injuries, but if any of the others had even a single scratch, their parents would kick up a fuss.

They went to Kuon’s mother, protesting loudly.

“Drive out that loathsome ''beast''!”

“Tie it up to a pillar of the house!”

Kuon heard their angry roars time and time again.

His mother, who had broken a tribal taboo, had lost her right to her own home. Even when illness forced her to stay in bed, none of her relatives came to see her. Unable to bear hearing his mother crying out from a fever-induced nightmare, Kuon ran out of the house in the pouring rain, and left the village at the foot of the mountain.

He had gone to beg for help from the shamans. Usually, they lived in isolated retreats in the mountains, far from other people, and he had heard that they were knowledgeable about illnesses and medicine. But a child’s feet could not travel very far. He walked for an entire day and night but, in the end, he did not find any of the shamans, and could only return to the village, drenched through from the rain. When his mother’s older brother saw Kuon in that state, maybe he felt some compassion after all, because he secretly brought them medicinal plants, and concocted a remedy that he had once learned from a shaman.

Kuon’s mother had always been in frail health and, when he was eight, she died of a chest illness. For a while, the tribe argued over what to do with him. None of his mother’s relatives wanted to take him in.

In the end, a man called Datta Wei took charge of Kuon, giving as his reason that “my house needs an extra pair of hands.”



Datta Wei.

He had a surname, which meant that he was a warrior.

Datta had about two hundred subordinates, all of whom also bore the name ‘Wei’. His wife, on the other hand, could not take that name, and neither could his own children unless they officially joined the unit once they were adults.

The same, of course, held true for Kuon. Even though he received food and a place to sleep, his position was close to being a servant, and his circumstances had certainly not improved.

The adults still despised him, especially the women who looked down on his mother for her ‘wanton’ behaviour. The children from the same age-group as him also continued to bully him. Datta’s son, Diu, was particularly violent about it. He was three years older than Kuon, and was always going around saying,

“Don’t speak to me like we’re equal, you fucking ‘unwanted spawn’. I’ll definitely became a man of the ‘Wei’, but you won’t. If you go to the battlefield, it’ll just be to die as a shield for me or my father. Now doesn’t that sound nice?”

Without a word of warning, he would knock him down as soon as he saw him. He stole Kuon’s share of food, then kicked him in his growling stomach. Diu was outstandingly good at hiding his behaviour from his parents and from the comrades-in-arms of the ‘Wei’, while Kuon got pushed around as the lowest-ranking member of the household. On top of doing a servant’s work inside the house, he was always sent out to accompany the hunters.

– If asked whether he felt nothing but unhappiness at his circumstances back then, Kuon would have to say that he couldn’t really remember.

Of course, he resented Diu. The other boy was older and larger than him and, because there were adults around, Kuon couldn’t fight back like he used to.

Naturally, he felt depressed. But at the same time, to Kuon in those days, the mountain life that existed thanks to the blessings from Tei Tahra was the only world he knew.

''The world outside…''

His imagination ran rampant about it. Whenever he heard the adults who worked in trade at the port talk about the surrounding countries, he always told himself –

''One day, I’ll leave the mountains and go to other lands too.''

That wish grew especially strong right after his mother’s death. Surely there, the children his age wouldn’t throw stones at him, and the adult women wouldn’t gaze at him in contempt for no reason.

As he got older, that simple, innocent yearning turned into slightly more realistic plans, as he thought about whether to run away one night through the mountains, or whether to steal a boat from the harbour and row himself into the open sea.

Yet at the same time, Kuon had a tremendous fear of breaking the mountains rules, which also came from the fact that he was not a pureblood. His existence was one that the mountain rejected and, if he failed to follow along with its god and its people, even if only by a little, he was terrified that he might be eliminated. His young heart never stopped trembling from that one fear.

In particular, there was the coming-of-age ceremony, which was performed once a year. This was the time that Kuon feared the most. As a minor who could not take part in it, he had no way of knowing anything about the ceremony itself, but when the time for it drew close, a ‘betrayer’ would inevitably appear within the community.

During that period, the priesthood spoke as one, saying that:

“The mountain’s energy is changing. The good and righteous are starting to go into hiding, and the evil spirits are starting to swarm.”

The mountain god, Tei Tahra’s, divine protection was at its weakest at those times. During that period, hunting was restricted, fishing was completely banned, and it was forbidden from leaving the house once the sun had set. This was also the period during which fathers drew the protective charms on their children’s foreheads.

Moreover, it was said that, “those with evil thoughts are easily possessed. Those who do not believe in Tei Tahra’s divine protection, those who disagree with the decisions of the tribe head, and those who use their cunning to deceive others – all of them have wicked hearts which can be drawn in by evil.”

Because of that, Kuon was made fun of even more than usual at those times.

“The only thing you can do, Kuon, is to stay and tremble inside the house. You’re not a pureblood, and you don’t have the charm either, so there’s no way Lord Tei Tahra will grant you His protection. You’ll get possessed as soon as you breathe the air outside.”

“Don’t worry, if that happens, I’ll exterminate you along with the evil spirit!”

Kuon pretended not to be the slightest bit scared of their threats, but inwardly, his anxiety grew exponentially: for all that the people of the community usually faithfully observed the taboos, during this time of the year, there were always some who became possessed by evil.

Once a year, a single trail of smoke would rise in the evening sky.

“Look, look!”

“The great shamans are casting the protective spells against evil!”

Pointing at it, the villagers would start clamouring.

These spells were cast because this was the one day when Tei Tahra’s protection was all but lost and, before long, a member of the tribe would inevitably vanish.

There was never any exception.

One of the men from the village would definitely disappear. Sometimes it was an old man of over sixty, sometimes it was a child who had yet to undergo his coming-of-age ceremony. That man was called into the mountains which were overrun by evil spirits, and it was said that one night, he would stagger aimlessly into the wilderness, responding to those summonses.

The family grieved for him, but there was nothing they could do. Once someone became possessed by evil, they were no more than ‘a betrayer who will harm Divine Tei Tahra and the tribe.’ It was said that not even the shamans could exorcise them.

Kuon had never seen anyone who was possessed by evil spirits, but it was for that very reason that a strange terror enveloped his heart.  “This year, you're the one who's going to go missing” – whenever they pointed at him and said that, he couldn't help but shiver uneasily.

He wondered where those who were possessed by evil went to. What were they looking for, there, beyond the protection from God and the mountain? He wondered if maybe, before going to sleep, he should ask someone to bind his hands and feet. So that he wouldn't be able to stagger out into the night.

''I don't have a wicked heart. I hate Diu and that bastard Tubai, but I've never thought of killing them. Lord God Tei Tahra, I'm not a pureblood, but I'm part of your people. Please protect me. Please don't let me be carried off outside.''

Up until the moment when he fell asleep, he would desperately pray in silence, while drawing the protective charm with his fingers again and again. It seemed to work, because Kuon never became a 'betrayer'.

Or at least, not until he came of age.



Among the children of the same age group as Kuon, there was a girl called Aqua.

She was a year older than him. Since very young, she had joined in with the boys, and loved playing with slingshots, duelling with sticks, or any kind of rough game. Ostracised by the boys his age, Kuon sometimes became a target for them to throw stones at, and Aqua also took part in that.

When she was eight or nine years old, she was thin, swarthy-skinned, and when she laughed, she seemed to be missing several teeth. Since he didn't have much to do with the other children his age, for a long time, Kuon didn't even realise that Aqua was a girl.

He was nine by the time he noticed it. By then, he had already been with the Wei household for a year.

That day, he had gone hunting with his seniors from the Wei. Although having said that, Kuon's role was, at best, to carry bags, drive the prey to the hunters by shouting, and generally just run around; he had not yet received a gun or a bow. When they were heading back, a bird suddenly flew out from the undergrowth, and one of the hunting dogs belonging to the Wei household followed after it and disappeared off the path.

Having been ordered to “Look for it and bring it back,” Kuon waded alone into the bushes, calling its name.

Stepping out onto the path on the other side of it, he found Aqua, equally alone, coming down from the mountain. She was holding a small bow in her hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears but, when she saw Kuon, she glared sharply at him.

“What are you looking at?”

“I'm not looking at anything. I'm searching for a dog. I've got nothing to do with you.”

“A dog? Hmph, well you are basically being kept by the Wei. So the pet dogs get along well.”

Kuon didn't offer a retort and continued with his search, but Aqua came with him.

“Why are you following me?”

“I'm not following you. I'm looking for prey. Don't lump it with a kid's chores.”

It wasn't rare for women in the mountains to have guns or bows. Quite the opposite: be it for self-defence or to be ready for when invaders broke into the mountains, women were generally encouraged to be familiar with weapons. And in practice, whenever there were trespassers seeking to harm the mountains, women joined the armed units to go and greet them at gunpoint.

Unlike fighting, however, only men were allowed to go hunting. The mountain god Tei Tahra had only bestowed unto men the right to track the birds and beasts that came under his jurisdiction, and, although they could go fishing, no woman was ever permitted to hunt.

Aqua was not happy about it. She was sure that, whether it was at using a bow or at advancing along the mountain paths, she would do much better than any boy her age, so she was constantly pestering the hunters of the 'Holo' and her father, the head warrior, to “let me go hunting too”. Since her father had always firmly refused, that day, she stealthily tailed the hunters. She believed that she could earn recognition if she managed to bring down at least one bird or animal but, in the end, the adults had found her and, after giving her a harsh scolding, they had sent her away.

Which was when she met Kuon.

The bow she held in her hand seemed to be something she had made herself. Perhaps she thought that Kuon had realised it, given that it was considerably smaller than the ones used by adults.

“This bow is much stronger than it looks,” Aqua said proudly, even though she hadn't been asked anything. “The guys who can only bring down beasts with huge weapons are the ones who are really idiots. They don't have any dedication.”

Maintaining a reasonable distance between one another, the two of them continued to search the mountain, but neither of them obtained any results.

The sun had already started to set, and night was the time when Tei Tahra transferred his protection from the humans to the beasts. Unless there was a compelling reason to make an exception, hunting at night was forbidden.

Kuon turned to head back to the village, but Aqua berated him for it.

“Coward. Your unit gave you a mission but you're abandoning it halfway – how are you even a man? This is why you're just a halfwit.”

Kuon was completely fed up by then.

“Shut up. The guy who was sniffling because the adults got angry has nothing to say. ''You're'' the one who's not being a man. You want me to try Lord Tei Tahra's 'thousand arrows of courage on you?”
[[Image: Leo_Attiel_Den_v03_213.png|thumb]]
Shouting loudly, he took a step towards her, and Aqua's shoulders suddenly jerked in surprise before her expression quickly turned to fright.

Up until then, Aqua had joined in with the boys when they insulted Kuon, and thrown stones or sticks at him from afar. When he had angrily chased after them, everyone would run away laughing, or would gang up to attack him. It was all part of playing.

But judging from Aqua's expression, she had just realised that now, she was all alone. She closed her mouth shut, hunched  her shoulders, and shrank away from him.

Kuon was bewildered by her reaction.

At that moment, the bushes in front of them started to rustle, startling both of them. Something was making its way through the tall grass and would soon be in sight.

In the distance, they could hear the voices of adults calling their names to one another. This was probably the prey they were chasing after.

Kuon was ready to leave at once, but Aqua's expression turned from fear to delight as she readied her bow.

“What're you doing? Run away!”

“If you want to run away, do it by yourself. The first kill I'll bring down has come to find me all by itself!”

Just then, scattering blades of grass in its wake, a grey-brown wild boar appeared.

It was huge. It was so massive that it looked like it could keep running even if Kuon and Aqua both clung to the mane along its back. What drew the eye more than anything were the tusks that curved higher than its snout.

Aqua shot an arrow, but she her timing had been far too hasty. She had been too impatient. She immediately nocked another arrow to her bow but, this time, she was too slow. Lowering its head, the boar charged.

Kuon could picture how Aqua would be flung into the air, and he rushed forward. While he ran, he picked up rocks that were rolling at his feet, and hurled them at the boar.

Aqua fell backwards. Just as she was about to be trampled underfoot, the second stone that Kuon had thrown struck the boar. It almost hit it in the eye.

The boar backed off noisily.

Just then, adults armed with spears and guns arrived, and the boar, with a high-pitched cry, changed its course and fled.
The adults were surprised to find Kuon and Aqua there. They raced after the beast without a moment's delay, but as they were doing so, and because the children had gotten in the way of the hunt, they told them something that was sure to scare more than anything:

“We'll have the shamans punish you after this.”

The shamans, who lived in mountain hermitages away from human settlements, were said to transform children who bothered adults into beasts who prowled the mountains.

“You alright?” Kuon reached out to touch Aqua's shoulder as she started to get up, but his hand was shaken off.

“I couldn't bring it down,” said Aqua, hanging her head. Her voice was shaking, maybe because of how frustrated she felt. The next moment, she lifted her face and screamed,

“It's your fault! If you hadn't interfered, I'd have killed it. Then they wouldn't have gotten mad. I'd have been accepted. I don't want to go to the shamans. I don't want to be turned into a beast or a frog. If someone's going, you go by yourself!”

She was crying as she shouted. She flung herself face downwards against the ground and wept loudly. She seemed to be at a complete loss. So was Kuon: he had intended to go home by himself, but he couldn't leave Aqua behind while she was crying. And that was because he had only just realised that she was a girl.

He stayed rooted in the same spot.

After about five minutes, Aqua stopped crying and slowly stood up. She threw away the bow that she had been holding the whole time and started to walk back towards the village. Kuon let her put a short distance between them, then started after her. As soon as he did so, Aqua looked back. He expected her to tell him not to follow her, but instead -

“What are you doing? Pick up the bow.”

“Didn't you just throw it away?”

“I'll give it to you. Something like that suits a child like you better.”

That was all she said before briskly walking forward.

Kuon couldn't remember if he picked up the bow or not.

Yet after that, Aqua didn't join the boys to play anymore. She didn't insult him or throw stones at him.

It wasn't because she had become meeker, though – she started to join the 'Holo' men in diligently training at archery.

A woman came of age when she turned twelve. That was three years sooner than the men. Usually, within the next two or three years, they would marry a similarly adult man and start to bear children. In a very small number of cases, the priests would find that a girl had an aptitude for becoming a priestess during the coming-of-age ceremony, and she would then begin her training. There was no right of refusal. It was a very great honour for a family to produce a priestess, so even though the training and religious learning were said to be harsh, there was no way for anyone to reject the call to serve near Tei Tahra, the mountain god.

Yet it wasn’t that there was no way at all to be allowed to go hunting or to be given a warrior’s surname. It was just that it meant giving up on being a woman.

Since girls were encouraged to handle guns and bows, there were sometimes, albeit rarely, women who demonstrated talent in using them that was equal to a man’s. “Perhaps God made a mistake when assigning them their sex.” In those cases, and as long as the person themselves wished it, they could be assigned to the afore-mentioned duties.

Upon choosing that path, however, one was no longer a woman. Naturally, they were forbidden from getting married or giving birth. If one of those people who ‘were born women but who are not women’ were to form a relationship with a man, then both of them would be banished from the community.

Aqua had apparently set her sights on walking a man’s path.

Yet contrary to her fervent desire, after a year or two passed and she had undergone her coming-of-age ceremony, in appearance at least, she gradually started to look more and more like a girl. “She really has become a beauty” – Kuon could remember how even Datta, the head of the Wei, had said so.

More and more men asked for her hand in marriage. One of them was Diu, who reached adulthood three years before Kuon. Yet Aqua refused them all. In order to be able to convince the priests and priestesses that she had a man’s talent, she continued to single-mindedly train with gun and bow.