Abandoned Priest at the Hero’s Party

The Hedgehog Parable

When I was still young, there was a story like this among the old stories told by the elders of the village.

Hedgehogs with sharp thorns gathered in one place to share the warmth of each other in order to survive the winter. But as they got closer, the thorns began to pierce each other.

I felt the tingling sensation and opened the distance again, and the cold wave of winter was bitter. But when we got back together, the thorns pierced each other again.

In the end, the hedgehogs did not get close to each other or far apart, and had to spend the cold winter with only a certain distance. When I was young, I thought this story was true. Hedgehogs thought they couldn’t stick to each other.

As always, not all fables or stories told that way are true. It would have been nice if the elf was a fairy of the forest, as the elders said, but in fact, it was like a fairy of drugs.

-What? Are hedgehogs stupid? They are also living creatures. They’re not stupid enough to stick with each other.

One day, while following Uncle Helmut, a hunter in Pumpkin Vine Village, he saw hedgehogs huddled together. They were wisely sharing each other’s body temperature with their spines laid down.

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Maybe he knew Uncle Helmut, and he patted the hedgehog casually. The guys did not reject the human touch, but laid the thorn down and accepted it.

Animals are sometimes not as stupid as people think. It was confirmed that the wisdom of the elders was wrong, but the hedgehog in the story at that time still remains in my memory.

That story came to mind again today after a really long time.

‘It looks similar to Loca, but it’s different.’

Recalling what happened in the past, Roca was wary of me for a while. The boy soon opened his heart to me. Now it’s rather open to the point that it’s a problem.

But that child still stands up with a thorn and is wary of me. He doesn’t seem to want to go away though. When I did not approach, the child did not back down. It spread its wings as if it would fly away at any moment, but it did not leave and stayed there for a while.

‘Rather than being afraid of me, I feel that it is difficult.’

The old Loka was afraid of me. He saw me, avoided me, and ran away, but he didn’t try to keep that distance.

Looking at it like that, it doesn’t seem like I don’t have a crush on people like me, but do I need a little more time?

“May I ask why you came to me? Is there anything you can do to help?”

Even if I ask, I just shake my head. It’s not that I don’t say You really don’t know yourself.

I couldn’t give you that answer for me. did not force I just quietly waited for Kisea-san to come.

…waited a little long. It was a little awkward.

Why the hell are you not coming here? Pouring the car wouldn’t take that long.

“I’m here!”

Wolves really come when they think of themselves. Soon, Kisea-san came up.

He offers a tray of tea and apples to me. But what about sugar and milk? Have you been unable to bear it on the way home?

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Maybe you forgot? Or did you say that you brought apples?

But what about this apple? I’ve never seen anything like this while using the overnight shelter. I don’t know where this came from.

Red and luscious apples. I felt a sense of dizziness somewhere. Or is this a gift from the Lord?

No, it doesn’t matter either way. A gift from the Lord or a gift from nature. coincidence or not.

I would have peeled the skins if there were any, but he also asked me to go back and bring them. When I held out the tray, I couldn’t hold it, so I just put it down and stepped back.

“Since you’ve been here before, go eat something like this. Would you like me to prepare a meal for you?”

shake your head Is it really that you don’t like it, or are you just saying you don’t like it? Still, I could tell the difference. nodded his head.

The meeting with the mysterious guest who came to us was over for the first time.

*****

“Well, I looked outside and there was an apple tree. It also bore fruit.”

Kisea chewed an apple and ate it. It is an apple, but it has little sour taste and has a strong sweet taste. However, it does not mean giving up the original taste of apples and just making them sweet like sugar.

“So I took all of them. You can eat it all the time. If there is any leftover, I will make some jam and eat it.”

It tasted just right. The sweetness was strong, but there was harmony in the taste.

It suited both the taste of humans and the taste of wolves. Rocca also enjoyed the apology. Mr. Kisea seemed to be bothered by peeling the skin, so he bit off the skin.

“This is it. It is clear.”

The princess also tasted the apple and stood out.

“This is the apology that the saint gave me when I first met him. Then it tastes the same.”

Surely, his gift is right. I don’t know why he gave me such a gift, but it’s too much of an exaggeration to even doubt the will of God.

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Maybe he just wanted to feed us apples.

“Where?”

“To speak.”

Rocca, holding an apple in her arms, stood up slowly. Kisea asked the question casually, but when she heard the answer, she frowned.

“Is it worth it? It’s enough for a horse to give you hay. People eat what people eat.”

“I also gave you sugar cubes earlier. Excessive snacks are bad for the body.”

The princess also agreed to dry it. If you feed your horse a lot of apples, one or two may not matter, but too much can cause problems.

However, there may or may not be problems with people and words. Rocca seemed eager to see the horse eating the apple.

Feeding animals is fun. In the end, Loka, who agreed to give away some apples, went out. Soon there was a noise outside.

Those guys suffered too. Maybe they suffered more than we did.

Since I really made a forcible march and broke through this rough terrain, I definitely deserved an apple.

“Now, is it not long until the core area or something?”

“If you look at the map drawn by the merchants, it is a little further away. I’m not sure it’s scaled correctly, so it’s not reliable, though.”

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Maps are inherently crude and error-prone objects. If you want to draw a map properly, you have to use something like an airship to map it in the air.

Otherwise, no matter how professional you are to draw, it will only reduce errors a little. The merchants we met would not have put such effort into making a map.

“There is no exact location of the Victory Museum of the Suin Liberation War on this map. We have to figure it out by digging into the core area and then either recruiting passers-by or intimidating them.”

In fact, the merchants admitted that they had never even been to the core area. It is said that the map of the vicinity of the core area is unreliable information created based on rumors.

From there, we have to find our own way. The princess was already worried about that thought.

“The problem is, that’s Epirna’s front yard. This kind of thing that could cause diplomatic friction with the Beast King is something that shouldn’t be done as an imperial princess…”

Finding a way is also finding a way, but he seemed to be quite concerned when Epirna caught him and things got bigger. Me, Roka, and Kisea are fundamentally savages, so we have no place to hold Epirna to blame but ourselves.

But the princess is the princess of the empire. You didn’t give up that identity. It is said that Epirna could pose a problem to the Empire with this.

Thinking about the empire, I wondered how well they dealt with the Shinigami. Thinking about the reaper, I also wondered what the other reaper we met in Duchy of Vlad was doing right now.

…where the hell did it go wrong?

The situation on the continent was so bad that it made me sigh. I thought this spring would be the same year as always, but now I am worried about whether I will be able to face next year.

“Close your eyes for a moment and start again. Rocca is already sleeping.”

After feeding the horses, he came back and fell asleep right away. Thanks to this, it was warm even sitting far away from the fireplace.

Probably because he was the youngest, he got used to the forced march while sleeping the fastest. It was the most vivid among us. Still, it’s not long now that we have to move so urgently.

‘We’re leaving in a little while, what about that boy?’

I can’t leave the guest up there alone, so I’ll have to give it a go before I leave.

I also slept for a while. The plain night deepened.