Chapter 1 – Irenia Dies

Irenia died.

At the very end of a harrowing life, she had tried desperately to hold on somehow……

For Delphine, her precious one, whom she had to stroke at least one more time with her wrinkled and shriveled hand though she could no longer see……

She had tried somehow to endure a little longer for her sake……

But in the end, she had not even a little strength left to endure any more……

She froze to death.

Beneath Elmanyef Bridge, where the beggars and the sick who had gathered by the waterside just to wet their throats had crowded together, only to become frozen corpses one by one…… where with every breath the vile stench of death burrowed into the lungs.

Cold seeped into her whole body, and all her fingers, her toes, no, all four limbs froze solid with frostbite, and in the end she gave up her final breath.

Cold and hunger.

If she could have chosen only one of those two extremes of suffering. Then perhaps she might have endured a little longer.

But it was a cruel winter night that did not permit even such a futile wish.

The dreadful and terrible season of trial in the City of Bienbube.

They said that the unusually long, long winter was part of the curse laid upon the first Emperor of the Matrain Empire, whose capital was that city. It was the price of the sins committed by Philippontian de Matrain, the man who had incurred the wrath of Minievar, guardian goddess of the Ernensia Continent, through merciless sl*ughter.

The punishment laid upon Matrain I would not end with him.

Not only he himself, but generation after generation, his descendants, the legitimate children of the imperial house, all those who inherited his blood, would never have their first love fulfilled, and in addition, the winter season, in which everything froze under severe and merciless cold, would last longer there than in any other nation on the Ernensia Continent.

Thus none among them, no matter how much they suffered, would be able to die, and for a very long time they would endure the endless, lonely pain of loss.

One who had lost love would never again be able to hold any other person in their heart, and would have to endure grief-filled years while living as though not truly alive.

That was why, for nearly a hundred years, the bitter cold cut and cut again at the flesh, as though carving out the hearts of the descendants of the imperial family bound by the goddess’s curse.

And so, as soon as winter came, the Sherenne River running through the City of Bienbube froze solid…… and the cold clawed and clawed again at every living thing in the region, until in the end it shattered all that was tender and frail into pieces.

During those savage days of brutal cold, the one who had been a steadfast support to her and Delphine……

Elonzo, who had never once left their side and had watched over them, fell into eternal sleep.

Her eleventh Elonzo.

He had been a shaggy ash-gray creature, yet even after being tormented all summer by ticks and fleas until patches of bare skin showed through, he had still shared his warm body heat with them…… a faithful friend who had never once neglected his guard through the night in order to protect her and her Delphine.

Even among the same rag-picking beggars, he would fiercely throw himself at those who were vicious and violent…… and at times he took cruel blows from clubs in their place. He, who had not slept in peace for a single night because he had been protecting them, was called first by the angels.

“Greed, when excessive, invites disaster.”

Before the cold had arrived, someone had tossed a single coin at her feet, saying that as they passed by.

She had never once indulged in anything like greed in the course of that long and difficult life. And so, to her, who had become the heroine of one unbroken chain of tragedies until she had fallen into such misery, they had been truly cruel words.

Now only Delphine remained to her.

Her granddaughter, Delphine.

Delphine, who, without even knowing that she was her maternal grandmother, nevertheless loved and relied on her, though she was no more than an old blind beggar.

All the effort she had made to save Delphinia, Delphine’s mother and her only daughter, no, to keep her from living a miserable life, had come to nothing.

In the end, when her daughter Delphinia died before she did, Irenia had thought that she had lost her sight forever, and Delphine as well…….

Even without being able to see her, she had been able to recognize her. She could see, again and again within her forever-closed eyes, how beautiful she was, how lovely she was, at every moment.

And yet in the end, she could not protect her.

Leaving behind that child who, whenever she listened to the old tales Irenia told, used to explain to her how brightly she smiled, saying that even in these long, long nights and painful days she did not know how happy even a single strand of joy made her.

Irenia closed her eyes.

After such a cold and hunger, it would not have been strange if she had died at any moment, yet she had wanted to endure a little longer.

If only she could share even a little warmth. If only she could endlessly tell rich stories that would let the child forget that dreadful reality, if only for a moment.

That alone had been what she hoped for as she endured……

It was a filthy corpse, unfit for angels to carry away.

The weather was so bitterly cold that the moment her breath went still, her body froze solid at once and decay was delayed, but there was no way the end of a life that had barely clung on day by day through food waste discarded by others could ever be beautiful.

Even so, Delphine could not let go of her frozen body.

It was not that she was seeking even a little warmth from her.

Her body, aged and diseased far beyond its years, had turned into a slab of ice in an instant.

And so now, no longer would she even be able to smell the ‘grandmother’s scent’ that had clung to her, whether it had been a stench or anything else.

And as she watched Delphine cling to her like that, shedding hot tears in heavy drops and sobbing, only then—only after her body had died and her soul had been separated from that flesh—did Irenia at last look down upon that lovely face and slender little body and feel a pain deeper and fiercer than any suffering she had ever known in life.

“Aah, Granny Irenia. You should have eaten that piece of bread I was going to give you yesterday. Aah, Granny…… euheu-heu-heuk……”

Delphine, good and gentle to the core, was regretting the previous night. There had been a piece of bread, less stale than usual, with a very faint maple sap spread over it in the smallest amount. Without even seeing it, Irenia knew what humiliation and danger the child must have suffered to obtain it.

‘I tasted such things long ago. You eat it. Even just hearing you eat, I can remember what it was like to have tasted it before.’

A few days earlier, while still alive, Irenia had shaken her head firmly as always and spoken calmly. She could not take away Delphine’s rare chance to taste something sweet.

And since that had become the last thing she had said, the child must now have been aching with unbearable sorrow as she regretted that moment.

Every winter, beneath Elmanyef Bridge, dozens, and at times hundreds, of beggars would die. Barely surviving among corpses pressed between corpses, they had to endure days in which they could not tell whether surviving was a blessing or a misfortune.