Wonder on the Mountain

Richie handed part of the affairs on the coast over to Blair.

Blair would be responsible for inspecting the care of the Return Fruit Trees.

Now, only during the annual Sea Festival, or when tribespeople were swallowed by the waves, would Chief Richie return to the coast and personally lead the tribespeople in devout prayer to the benevolent gods at the seaside altar.

Richie shifted his focus to matters within the island.

He listened as the elders reported on conditions in the mountains and fields.

"Since Captain Barlow taught everyone how to shoot arrows, some exceptionally talented people have been able to hit those hard-to-catch birds and beasts."

"However, some people have discovered strange dead birds and beasts while hunting."

"They did not appear to have been struck by arrows, yet for some reason they died in the woods. Their bodies were completely intact. The tribespeople feared they had eaten some poisonous plant, so they brought them back and roasted them for a very long time before eating them. No one showed any signs of poisoning."

Richie heard some strange rumors about the mountains.

After thinking for a moment, he decided to inspect the mountains himself.

Yet after several weeks of patrols, he found no abnormalities.

He relaxed somewhat and began asking after the lives of those living in the mountains.

A large portion of these mountain tribespeople were elders and women from the Tribe.

They were not as strong as the men, nor could they hunt with bows and arrows, so they went into the mountains to gather herbs or did weaving work at the foot of the mountains.

Richie began asking the tribespeople living near the mountains about their lives one by one.

He wanted to see whether they had enough food and whether they faced any difficulties requiring help.

Richie soon came to the women weaving baskets and hemp ropes at the foot of the mountain.

Among them,

Richie quickly noticed a lame woman.

The woman's name was Naen.

She had snow-white hair.

She knelt among the people being questioned.

That striking white hair made her stand out sharply from everyone around her.

So Richie spotted her at once.

However, he had not noticed her merely because of her hair color.

He vaguely remembered seeing her somewhere before.

"Were you one of the people locked in the cave back then?"

As if he had finally remembered something, Richie suddenly asked.

She had been a criminal imprisoned in the cave alongside him.

"Yes."

"What were you imprisoned for?"

Naen lowered her head.

She watched her striking white hair fall over her dark arm and slowly began her story.

When she was a child,

the Tribe had already deemed her, with her white hair, a heretic and imprisoned her in a cave.

White-haired freak, malformed one, prematurely aged one.

Those had all been names people called her.

Even in prison, the other criminals often bullied her because of her striking white hair.

But on the night before Naen was to be burned alive as a sacrifice, fate arrived.

Naen would never forget that night—

Richie and a group of wild-eyed people charged into the cave with torches raised high, killed the chief, and freed everyone.

She had been one of the criminals pardoned back then.

Naen's new life had arrived.

Although she still went hungry because of the famine,

such days were far better than being imprisoned in that dark cave where daylight never reached.

"I'm sorry for making you remember unpleasant things."

There was apology on Richie's face.

He soon began chatting with her about other matters and learned that she had recently fallen from the mountain, which had left her lame.

Naen had climbed a very, very tall mountain.

While climbing it, she slipped and rolled down.

That was how she broke her leg.

"Why did you climb that barren mountain?"

Richie looked at Naen curiously.

Years earlier, while reclaiming wasteland, he had led the tribespeople through great effort to climb that towering mountain.

But after reaching the top, they discovered that it was so barren not even a blade of grass grew there.

There were no plants.

Naturally, no wild beasts came near it either.

There was nothing on that high mountain.

Everyone soon went back down in disappointment.

So even now, those seeking medicinal herbs or hoping to find plants in exchange for rewards would not attempt to climb such a mountain for no gain.

That was why Richie was very curious what she had hoped to find there.

Naen lowered her head and said,

"I was not really looking for anything. The mountain was simply very high, and it happened to be there, so I wanted to climb it and have a look."

Though Naen's tone was humble, there was a trace of thoughtlessness in it.

Faced with such a childish answer, the people could not help exchanging looks.

But Richie smiled.

Over the following days,

he often came by to inspect the area again.

As if by chance, he would speak with Naen.

At first, Naen still treated the chief with respect.

But as they became more familiar, her attitude gradually changed.

Sometimes, while the other tribespeople were still being questioned, she would run off alone and squat in the woods to watch butterflies fluttering in the sunlight.

Sometimes, while Richie was still speaking to her, dirty-faced Naen had somehow found a beetle and let it crawl freely across the back of her hand.

Like a child immersed in her own world.

Soon, after several months, Naen's foot healed.

Over those months, Naen and Richie had grown increasingly familiar with each other.

Naen tossed aside her wooden crutch and invited Richie.

"Honored Chief, Naen would like to invite you to climb that very, very tall mountain with me."

"I do not want to be a foolish cripple."

Hearing her request, Richie decisively shook his head and refused.

"You're really not going?"

"Why should I?"

"Then watch from below. Maybe you can catch me."

"What nonsense."

Feeling as though he were quarrelling with a child, Richie walked away helplessly.

Then, after a while,

he returned.

At some point, he had acquired a branch broken from a tree at the foot of the mountain.

Barlow looked at his chief in confusion.

He watched as the chief, who had originally turned to leave, broke a branch from the bushes at the foot of the mountain and used it as a climbing stick.

Then, leaning on the branch and slowly planting it against the ground, the chief began making his way up the mountain, catching up to Naen, who was already climbing.

Though Barlow found this somewhat strange, he said nothing.

He merely followed silently behind, in case anything happened to the chief.

Naen and Richie reached the summit without incident.

It was bare and barren.

Just as it had been years ago, there was nothing there.

Yet the two standing at the mountaintop both looked down below at the same time.

The scenery of the island stretched before them in its entirety.

They saw many things—

Stone houses dotted the entire island.

Wisps of cooking smoke rising from scattered stone houses gathered into a vast white stream flowing through the woods. The baskets of herb gatherers below brushed against shrubs with a rustling sound, mingling with the dull thuds of axes splitting wood that drifted through the hazy mist from time to time.

On the gentler slopes farther away,

people bent over harvesting Tree Cassava looked like dark brown ants, or seeds scattered by the wind, speckling the whole valley.

The mountaintop remained devoid of even a blade of grass.

But the scenery at its foot spread out before them like the chronicles of a giant.

"Beautiful, isn't it? From here, you can see the entire Tribe."

Naen said this as she tucked back her wind-tossed white hair.

Richie merely stood at the edge of the cliff.

In the cold wind, he stared fixedly at everything below.

Only after a long while did he slowly sigh.

"Yes. It really is beautiful."

This was the first time he had seen the landscape of his Tribe—

the scenery that he and the tribespeople had carved out from nothing over more than a decade.

And years ago,

when he had stood atop this mountain and looked down, the island had still been utterly barren.

So much time has already passed.

Burdened with the gods' mission, he had kept moving forward.

Yet he had never stopped to look upon the new life emerging within the Tribe.

That day,

in the bitter wind atop the mountain, Richie stood on the peak for a very, very long time, gazing at the scenery below.

Another half year passed.

Richie made two decisions.

The first decision.

He wanted to follow Naen's suggestion and build a Wonder for the gods atop the highest mountain on the island.

From within this Wonder, one would be able to take in all the scenery of the island at a glance.

It would make people remember the gods.

It would also make people remember themselves.

The second decision.

He had decided that Naen was the person he had been looking for.

The day he announced those two decisions, it was no less shocking than throwing a modern bomb into this primitive Tribe.

Of course, people were not shocked by the decision to build a Wonder.

It was the second decision.

Originally, the elders had been overjoyed that this chief with such exacting standards had finally taken a liking to a woman, believing the bloodline of the God-Chosen could finally continue.

However, after seeing Naen's appearance, the expressions on their joyful faces gradually changed, and they all revealed fear and doubt.

"Why would you take a liking to such a woman?"

"Only a strong, healthy, respected woman is worthy of you, God-Chosen."

"She is far too strange. It is not merely her hair; her mind seems afflicted by some bizarre illness as well. Her mind is not normal. What kind of woman wanders the wilderness every day? If you have children with someone like her, I fear they will be doomed to die young."

"Chief, I heard she was once violated by criminals. Perhaps sinful blood has already flowed through her body. It would be extremely inappropriate for you to marry her."

Amid the elders' noisy and heated discussion,

only one elderly elder and Blair exchanged a glance in the firelight.

Then, as if by mutual understanding, both fell silent.

Clearly, they had noticed the unpleasant expression on Richie's face and shut their mouths in time.

However, the other elders noticed none of this.

Their fierce debate made the expression on Richie's face grow increasingly grim.

At last, Richie interrupted them with a dark expression.

"Enough. Stop talking."

The elders moved their lips, still wanting to say something.

Barlow stepped forward alone.

He used his towering frame to block the elders who still wanted to persuade him.

"Elders, the clan chief doesn't want to hear you speak anymore. Please leave."

Faced with the huge Barlow, the elders could only withdraw unwillingly.

Naen successfully became Richie's wife.

A year later.

Naen became pregnant.

Richie began setting aside some of his affairs.

Sometimes, he would slowly stroll with her through every part of the island.

Until one day.

As the sun set.

The two of them walked along the beach, stepping on the soft sand tinted a faint red, talking freely about anything and everything.

Richie stared blankly out at the sea.

It was as though he had remembered something, and he fell silent.

Within those black eyes, specks of light shimmered with the rise and fall of the waves beneath the setting sun.

"Why did you suddenly stop talking?"

Naen was crouching on the beach, watching ants crawl back and forth.

She turned her head and asked.

He came back to himself and smiled at Naen.

"I remembered some things—or rather, some thoughts from the past."