Uchiha Hikaru continued onward, wanting to see whether he might encounter anyone else ahead. After all, he still needed to find companions to walk the road ahead with him.
This long journey was simply too lonely if he had to travel it alone. Uchiha Hikaru was gradually finding that he could no longer bear such loneliness, which was why he wanted to seek companions.
The weather had been especially good these past few days. The blazing sun felt just like Uchiha Hikaru's mood, and that great sun made him feel that all his current difficulties were nothing. Little by little, they could scatter across the ground like sunlight and vanish without a trace.
"Big brother, big brother, how did you get here? What are you here for? I'm in charge of watching over the trees here. If you want to cut down trees, that won't do."
A tiny child suddenly emerged from the woods and said all that to Uchiha Hikaru. Hikaru found it utterly baffling. I have no intention of cutting trees. Why is he spouting this nonsense at me?
"You're overthinking it. Do I look like I'm here to cut trees? I don't even have any tools—how could I cut them down? Kid, how long have you been here? You just popped out of nowhere. You're definitely not an ordinary child, are you?"
Uchiha Hikaru found the child particularly amusing, so he wanted to tease him and see what was interesting about him, if only to relieve his own boredom.
The little boy could tell that Uchiha Hikaru was teasing him, so he was unwilling to say much. Still, he cooperated and joked around with him.
The boy spent every day cooped up in these woods with no one to talk to, so he was especially bored as