Kino no Tabi:Volume15 Chapter3

「Land with a Past」 —What We Have Taught—

"Ruins, huh. Won't it all just be broken down?" Hermes asked.

"Maybe, but I still want to check for myself," Kino replied, as she rode.

They were in a strange land where trees were able to sprout, despite the rocky ground.

The rolling hills were dotted with broad trees poking out of the earth.

The trees grew thick branches in every direction, but they didn't carry the leaves you might expect to see on such a large tree. In truth, these cacti were large plants, but they still looked strikingly similar to regular trees.

The sky was a calm blue. At its zenith was the sun. There was hardly a cloud in sight.

The season was autumn. The air was cool, and Kino wore a coat, with a bandana over her face.

Kino and Hermes were riding west. The earth was dry rock, as hard as pavement. With no cracks or bumps, the land itself was a road that stretched out in every direction.

Kino rode Hermes at a leisurely pace, driving wide circles around any cacti in the way. "It's something I first heard about from Master," she said.

"Oh, it's from a long time back then," Hermes said.

Kino nodded, "Yeah. Master told me, 'There were incredibly beautiful ruins. The country was at the foot of a mountain, where they built waterways for the clear spring water they drew out. It was a lovely town that looked like it could still support thousands of people.'"

"Hmmm. If everything was made of stone, the town could still be around. Why was it abandoned?"

"Master stayed there for a few days to investigate it, but she never figured it out in the end."

"Wow. What did she think though?"

"If it was disease, there would still be bodies left behind, but there were no visible remains or signs of burials. If there had been some kind of conflict like a war, the country would have been destroyed, but everything was still intact. If the people migrated somewhere else, they would have taken their belongings, but those were still around, including their stores of dried meat and grains, which Master helped herself to. She said the only thing out of place was that the country gate was left open."

"Hmm. A country where all of the people vanished, leaving behind their homes and food, huh. What a mystery. It sounds like a story about an abandoned ship that I heard before."

"After that, Master went to a nearby country to ask if they knew what had happened, but they told her the abandoned country was always so isolated that the nearby country's people never even knew it existed."

"As in, no one had even gone to that country before?"

"Apparently. As you can see, the land here is all dry and hard, so no one wanted to hurt their horse's hooves by coming here. There are other places to go, and the land here is so barren with nothing but rocks, that no one ever went near the country."

"Hmm. For a motorrad though, this is the best possible terrain."

"Master thought the same thing, since she drove a car, so she was trying to take a shortcut to a different country when she ran into the ruins on accident."

"Hmm, so if it turns out that this country is still intact and deserted, are you planning to live there, Kino?"

"Who knows — That might not be so bad."

"It'd be lonely just by yourself though."

"Well I have you, Hermes."

"It'd be lonely just by ourselves though. We need to increase the population somehow, but that doesn't seem likely. If only you could talk too, 'Canon'."

"Yeah, it'd be great if you and 'Canon' got along."

"What'll you do if we get along too well and then we end up getting married?"

"I'll think of names for your children."

"Make sure they're cool ones."

Their conversation continued on like that as they rode through the desert, until —

"I see it!" "I see it!" They crested a hill and caught sight of the stone walls in the distance.

—

As Kino and Hermes neared the walls, they could see that the gates were closed.

"Huh? How do we get in?" Hermes wondered.

Kino craned her neck a bit and said, "Maybe we need to go around and enter from the other side?"

But it turned out that they didn't need to.

Once they got closer, a door next to the gate opened, and an axe-wielding guard walked out.

"What?" "What?"

—

"Traveler! Welcome! We're so glad to have you!"

"Amazing! It's been 13 years since a traveler last came to our country!"

"So that's a motorrad! This is my first time seeing one! Thank you for this valuable opportunity!"

"Take it easy!"

"Whoo — You're so hot, Traveler—! Be my boyfriend!"

The citizens greeted Kino and Hermes as they strolled through the country.

"What?" "What?" They both whispered incredulously each time.

The country's streets were lined with pristine stone houses and canals that flowed with clear stream water.

Hermes said in a small voice, "What is all this, Kino? Isn't it just a regular country full of people?"

Kino replied in a small voice, "I don't know... Maybe they came back from wherever they went?"

"Then what if they ask us to take responsibility for the food Master took?!"

"Uh, I'd like to believe that won't happen..."

Kino and Hermes made their way to the plaza at the center of the country, where they found the inn they'd been recommended to by the gracious citizens.

—

A little while later, in the evening.

In order to welcome their first visitors in 13 years, the country was holding a festival.

The citizens opened up their reserves to provide a marvelous spread of food that could only be had a few times a year, and everyone was in good spirits to celebrate their guests.

Kino was invited by the country chief to the banquet at the country's capitol.

The chief, who appeared to be about 40 years old, described the country to Kino and Hermes.

They had a population of 5,000. They tilled the rocky soil to create arable crop fields, raised fish in the bubbling spring water, herded sheep, and once in a while, they even ate cacti. Everyone in the country seemed to live life in relative leisure.

Kino listened as she ate a piece of mutton roast, "…" She gave Hermes a short glance and then asked, "How long have you all been living here?"

The chief's response came immediately, "Excellent question! We've been here for almost 800 years now!"

—

The country's residents spoke proudly of their country's history.

800 years ago, their ancestors had migrated here as 80-odd people from some unknown place.

Through their incredible engineering, they took this barren wasteland of rocks and built it into a country.

For the past 800 years, they had not been at war with any other countries, nor had they suffered internal strife. They had simply been living their lives in peace.

They had recorded every change in their population since their founding, so they had knowledge of every person's family tree.

Kino casually, very casually, asked whether there had ever been a time when the entire population had had to leave the country.

"Of course not! We have lived our entire lives in this land, ever since we first set down roots here." All of the citizens agreed, with some of them laughing at what they thought must have been a joke.

Kino tried searching for someone that might have been alive when Master had visited, but she didn't see anyone like that in the crowd.

"How strange." "How strange."

"Did Master lie? No, I can't imagine that. She wouldn't have any reason to."

"Yeah... Are you sure you didn't bring us to the wrong place, Kino?"

"I can't say for sure that that's impossible... But it matches her description, and I can't imagine there being many other countries like this one."

"Yeah..."

Over the next two days, Kino and Hermes observed the residents' daily life and in turn, they traded stories of their own strange experiences. The citizens offered Kino delicious foods in gratitude, of which she ate too much.

The country was home to very many children, to say the least.

Couples married early and from several of them raised children, so the population was booming.

The country had limited area and food supplies, so eventually they would run into a need for population control, but they still had room to grow, at least now.

—

On the morning of the third day since entering the country, it was time for Kino to depart.

Leaving behind the huge send-off that the citizens prepared, they went through the departure procedure at the west gate.

"In the end, we never solved the mystery, Kino."

"Yep. But it was fun, so let's call it good."

"Traveler! Please wait up!"

Kino was just about ready to depart on Hermes when someone called out to them. A guard came running from the gate to stop them.

"A messenge arrived from the elder, who eagerly wishes to meet you. She's on her way here, so please, wouldn't it be possible for you to delay your departure for a bit?"

Kino had already been told that their country's oldest citizen was named their elder, so she agreed without hesitation.

"We might finally hear about the mystery!" Hermes exclaimed as he waited with Kino in the gate-side guard office.

—

An old woman of about 70 years arrived in a sheep-drawn carriage.

She was without a doubt the oldest person in the country.

She had definitely been absent during the first day's celebration. Her legs were weak, and she needed a caretaker on each side to support her as she walked.

She introduced herself as the former country chief, and Kino and Hermes greeted her politely.

Then, just as Kino was about to ask her about the past, the woman said, "Everyone, please leave us alone for a bit."

The guards and caretakers left her side and walked a fair distance away, leaving only Kino, Hermes, and the country elder in the cramped guardroom. It was a good place for sharing secrets.

The elder, whose face was carpeted in wrinkles, wasted no time in getting to the point. "Traveler... You asked the day before yesterday, did you not, about whether our people had abandoned this land?"

Kino nodded yes.

"Are you the true heir to this land? One of their descendants?"

Kino understood the woman's meaning immediately, and answered in a serious voice, "No. I am not. Please be at ease. I didn't come here to survey the country so I could reclaim it. I swear from the bottom of my heart that this is the truth."

The tension very obviously drained from the elder's body.

"Kino is completely unrelated! Just a simple traveler! She happened to know another traveler that came here several decades ago, who explained the country's situation," Hermes said, and Kino laid out everything she knew for the elder.

"I see..." the elder sighed in relief.

Kino said, "So then you settled into this country after it had been abandoned, right?"

"Yes, that's right," said the elder, beginning her story.

Many decades ago, when she was still young, she made the journey here in a group of one hundred. Every single one of them was a criminal.

"So they were exiled from their homeland? Including you, elder?" Hermes asked, with no sense for decorum, but the elder was not shy in replying.

Yes, she had been a criminal in her homeland when she was younger. She mugged wealthy people, and she had even killed several of them, she said quietly.

They set off on their journey to escape and lost several people to starvation and infighting along the way before finally coming across this country.

They had already been to countries where they had been outed as criminals, as well as other countries that just wouldn't take in such a large group of people, so they feared this country would be the same — but to their amazement, the country was completely deserted.

They were so filled with joy that at that moment, they all took a vow to change their ways and cooperate so that they could live together here in harmony.

They took this new opportunity as a gift from the heavens, but they lived in constant fear that the true residents would someday return and force them to leave.

Once the elder had finished her story, Kino said, "I understand that the country was already abandoned when you settled, and then your children populated this country even further, but the one thing I don't understand —"

"— is the history that everyone believes now, right? About 800 years ago," Hermes finished.

They thought the elder might not answer, but she told them readily, "It's all made up."

"I see." "I see."

"When the children were born, and it seemed that we would be able to continue living here, we suddenly wanted an admirable past. Committing crimes, being exiled, wandering from country to country, and then finally stealing away a country for ourselves... Those weren't the stories we wanted to tell our children. So we threw away our pasts and created a fake history from square one, going back 750 years, complete with family trees. Looking back on it now, it was fun." The elder, who had been wearing a grave expression until now, smiled just a little.

"I see..."

"So how did you decide? Did someone go and write a novel?" Kino asked.

The elder shook her side from side to side, "No, we all came up with it together. We decided based on whoever was loudest."

"Hah?" "Huh?" Kino and Hermes asked together.

"Whoever was loudest. We gathered everyone up, and then the chairman would start, 'Today we're deciding what happened 398 years ago. What happened in the winter?' and then everyone would yell things out. 'A ton of black sheep were born!' or 'It rained for seven days, and then a huge rainbow came out!' or 'A man named ｘｘｘｘｘ built a new canal!'"

"And then?" "And then?"

"The chairman listened to everyone, and whatever they decided was the loudest became our official history. We carved it into stone tablets and taught it to the children. 'You were born into this country with a proud, 700-year history.'" The old woman smiled. It was a sad, bitter smile. "As the years passed, even those of us that made it up began to forget what was real and what wasn't. It was forbidden to write the truth anywhere, and we continued to teach our children lies... And now I'm the only one left that remembers what truly happened when we settled here."

Kino and Hermes listened to her confession in silence.

"And I don't have much time left. Soon no one will know the truth. The... The people that built this country, the people that saved us, if their children ever return to say, 'This is our country,’ what will our children do in response to their legitimate claim? But there's... there's nothing left that I can do. I cannot return to the past that I've already thrown away. The true past can't be revealed without erasing the false past. What we've done to our children is irreparable."

Finally, the old woman said to the travelers with a sorrowful smile on her face, "Even if it's just the two of you, please remember what really happened. Remember that I was a criminal."

And then, Kino and Hermes left, with the elder and the guards seeing them off.

They had no trouble riding over the hard rock, and soon the country walls disappeared into the distance.

Hermes spoke up, "What do you think, Kino? Will you remember everything about that country and that woman until you die?"

Kino stared hard at the far-off cacti and rocks on the horizon, "I don't know about that... Of course I won't forget it anytime soon, but I don't think I can remember until I die."

"Yeah... You know, that woman will die worrying about the country's true citizens coming back, couldn't you have told her one little lie?"

"Hm? Like what?"

"Like, that a terrifying traveler known only as 'Master' lost her temper and slaughtered everyone in the country, so there was never a chance of them returning."

"With Master, that's possible... What if that's what actually happened?"

"So?"

"'So?'... I'm no good with lies."

"But if you keep lying, even they'll become true history someday. Just like that country."

"Well, I guess — what makes something 'true history'?"

Hermes replied immediately, "When everyone believes it's true, right?"

Kino had to think for a while before agreeing, "… Well, I guess."

After riding in silence for about 30 seconds, "Kino, you should make up some history too!" Hermes said excitedly.

"What?"

"If you come up with a cool backstory for yourself, you can live your life saying, 'Hey, I am heir to a long, proud history.' You can boast about it in all the countries we visit! Say you're really a princess from some distant land and you're filthy rich! Why don't we start doing that from now on?"

Underneath her bandana, Kino made a weird frown and said, "No. I don't need that kind of beautiful made-up past. I'm okay with just living and traveling like this. — What about you, Hermes? Do you want that kind of beautiful past?"

"Not really, but I'll take what I can get."

"Okay, then I'll come up with one for you."

"Oh! Please do! Do it!"

"'The motorrad Hermes —'"

"Yeah, yeah?"

"— always rises at the crack of dawn in record time, without needing anyone to wake him up. He's so good that I don't even need an alarm clock."

"…"

"Is something the matter, Hermes, o ye of early rising?"

"Oh stop, that's ancient history. These days I'm nothing more than a simple motorrad."

"That's not true! I know you can do it if you try, Hermes! Come now, think back to your past! Starting tomorrow, I want you to believe in yourself."

"Uhh, okay, I don't need that kind of backstory."

"See?"

The motorrad rode on over the rocky earth.

Translator’s Notes

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