The Vow of a Sunfish

Upon reviving, I immediately reflected on my life choices.

If I had to pick the two most frequent causes of my deaths, they would be “dying from the impact of a trip and fall” and “heart attack induced by sudden fright.” Since settling in the Monster Forest, my body had grown significantly sturdier, and because I hadn’t died in quite a while, I had let my guard down.

‘To think I’d drop dead in a brief window like that.’

It was a blessing among misfortunes that the impact hadn’t been severe, which kept my revival time short. I subtly checked Lucalis’s reaction. Though he was trying his best to look composed, the cold sweat pooling on his forehead and his wildly darting pupils betrayed his true state of mind.

“Uh… did I scare you a lot?”

“I thought you were dead.”

Well, I was dead.

I was, but his words sparked a glimmer of hope in me—the kind of hope that made me think I could somehow bluff my way out of this if I pushed hard enough.

“I was just on the brink of death. When I faint, my breathing becomes incredibly faint and my heart practically stops beating. It’s a unique constitution of mine.”

An instantly suspicious glare shot right back at me. I broke out into a sweat and averted my eyes. As expected, was that a bit too far-fetched?

“Are you a Lich?”

The layman’s innocent question brought an involuntary laugh to my lips. What are you smirking for?—the boy’s face demanded. I stepped closer and placed his hand right over my chest.

“W-What are you doing?”

I expected him to fling my hand away, but perhaps out of sheer bewilderment, the boy quietly let his hand rest on my chest. A palm significantly smaller than mine was pressed right over my heart.

“A Lich’s heart doesn’t beat.”

Lucalis’s mouth shut tight. His expression shifted into something bizarre. Even during this silence, the rhythmic thudding of my heart was being transmitted directly into his palm. Smiling brightly, I asked, “How is it?”

Slap.

Without a word, Lucalis yanked his hand back as if flinging it away.

“Ngh.”

His reckless movement ended up punching me square in the chest. It hurt enough to bring a tear to my eye, but Lucalis looked even more horrified by what he had done than I was.

“D-Don’t make strange noises!”

What do you mean, strange noises? That was just a natural sound born of pure pain.

“No, that was practically an involuntary reaction to—”

“I don’t care! Shut up!”

His huffing face was flushed bright red. For a split second, I felt a surge of annoyance, but I managed to suppress it by contrasting my actual age with Lucalis’s.

I was a venerable sunfish. I couldn’t very well throw a tantrum just because a newborn kitten nipped at me.

“Let’s just eat breakfast.”

“You want to eat with that thing roaming around outside?”

As if on cue to back up his words, another thunderous roar echoed through the air.

Grooooaaar!

I grinned. Come to think of it, an object upon which I didn’t have to suppress my irritation was right outside. I lightly flicked the wand tucked into my trousers pocket.

The window slammed open, and a cylindrical chair carved from solid timber shot out, striking the giant beast right between its eyes. In terms of relative size, it looked exactly like a human getting hit by a cork stopper, but it would hurt in a league entirely incomparable to a mere cork.

Yelp!

The giant beast staggered, looking down at the cabin with tears welling in its eyes. Lucalis muttered as if entranced.

“…Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Why does that thing look like it’s trying to act pitiful?”

“You’re seeing it perfectly right.”

The other creature it had been facing off against flinched the moment I turned my gaze toward it, and quietly sank back down into the depths of the forest.

“I told you bas—ahem, I told you to stop messing around.”

I almost dropped an F-bomb in front of the kid. When I cleared my throat and glared, the giant beast shrank back, pulling its neck in.

Whimper.

In the end, it slunk away in tears today as well.

With another flick of my wand, the cork stop—sorry, the chair, which had fallen somewhere in the forest, deftly navigated around the trees and zipped straight back through the window.

“Now then, let’s eat.”

Lucalis quietly took a seat at the table. I had expected him to dig his heels in and demand, ‘Take me back to where I was right this instant,’ but for some reason, he was remarkably compliant.

Only after demolishing ten servings of scrambled eggs and pancakes did Lucalis finally speak.

“Take me back to where I was right this instant.”

Ah, so he had merely judged that recovering his strength was the top priority. The moment I refused, he lunged at me with his fork. The sharp metal pricked the skin just beneath my jaw. If he were a normal child, I would have flipped him over my knee and spanked him, but the child before me was a monster capable of ripping through a Tier 4 Barrier magic with brute force.

“Do you want to die?”

“Every time you say that, I’ve been meaning to ask: where on earth did you learn to say such horrible things?”

Asking a sunfish if he wants to die. How could anyone say something so cruel?

Granted, there were days when I died six times a day, but dislike was still dislike. Lucalis looked visibly taken aback.

“Horrible? This?”

“Of course.”

The tip of the fork trembled slightly. Why are you wavering? I am completely serious here.

“Cut the nonsense and take me back to where I came from.”

I’m sorry, but that simply isn’t going to happen.

“You asked earlier where this place is. We are right in the dead center of the Monster Forest.”

“Liar.”

“It’s the truth. So if you kill me, you will never be able to leave this place alive.”

Regaining its composure, the fork pressed threateningly against my skin. I tapped the side of the tines with my finger.

“Threatening me with this won’t do you any good. What are you going to do if you leave with a scrawny, emaciated body like that anyway? Seek revenge?”

“You!”

“Lest you misunderstand, let me tell you in advance: while you were asleep at the inn, I paid a visit to the Information Guild. I swear upon my mana, finding you in that s*ave merchant’s building was pure coincidence.”

Lucalis gritted his teeth. People of this world did not make vows lightly. This was even truer for those who possessed supernatural abilities beyond ordinary humans.

While the object of the vow differed for everyone, the voice of the vow was heard by the Divine Threads spun across the world. If one broke it, the threads extracted a corresponding price.

A mage lost their magic, a knight lost their swordsmanship, a priest lost their divine power. And a person of authority lost their destiny.

“I can take care of my own business. Why should I trust anything a suspicious mage I just met says—”

“At the very least, you must have felt certain from my attitude that I won’t harm you. That’s why you’re brazenly pointing a fork at me even after seeing me effortlessly drive off a giant beast…”

“…….”

The boy wavered, and I instantly thought, ‘Uh-oh.’ It was a blatant slip of the tongue.

“I didn’t mean to back you into a corner. Truly.”

I hastily grabbed the boy’s wrist. Flinching, the boy bit his lower lip hard, seemingly furious at the fact that he had shown fear. Even so, he didn’t rashly shake off my hand.

To me, driving off the giant beast was just a mundane part of daily life, but to the boy, it seemed to have been an utterly monumental shock.

“I swear upon my mana. I will never do anything that brings you harm.”

The boy wavered even more violently than before. He was so startled that he even dropped the fork he had been gripping tightly until now.

He tilted his head back, his bewildered face coming into clear view. Wearing a thoroughly harmless smile, I reached out and ruffled his hair.

“You… what is your true identity?”

Well, aren’t you a bit quick to ask? When I let out a soft chuckle, the boy’s face hardened into a rigid mask. A murderous intent even began to swirl within his eyes. A cornered young beast was fiercely baring its fangs.

“I’m asking you. What the hell are you?”

If I were to explain who I am, four days and nights wouldn’t be enough. That was how many different identities and names I had lived under. But if I had to give a single-word answer, my choice was already set.

“A sunfish.”

“What?”

“I said, a sunfish.”

“…….”

After a moment of hesitation, he asked back, “What on earth is that?”

“A creature cursed by God.”

Lucalis flinched.

The people of this world were highly sensitive to superstitions and curses. When you live in a world where artifacts from the Mythic Age circulate in the black market and miracles manifest as magic, even the most rational person is bound to harbor a sliver of belief.

It was the exact same context in which, even today—when the power of the gods had waned to the point where temples became ruins and priests became wandering healers—a deep-seated reverence for the divine remained embedded in the recesses of people’s minds.

Therefore, what I had just said was something no native of this world would dare utter, even as a joke.

After hesitating for a long while, Lucalis asked cautiously, “Why were you cursed? What sin did you commit?”

“I thought you’d get scared and run away. You’re asking that?”

“I believe in the existence of gods, but I do not faith in them.”

My eyes widened in surprise. Considering Lucalis’s background, this statement was beyond unconventional—it was practically a mutation. In this regard, he was the exact opposite of Vanessa. She had possessed a devout, unwavering faith…

‘Wait a minute.’

I pressed my fingers firmly against my temples.

‘Since when did I start comparing this child to Vanessa?’

It had been from the very beginning. The moment the realization struck, I felt the blood run cold in my veins.

The child before my eyes resembled Vanessa, but he was not Vanessa. I knew that much. Yet, was it because I had been delivered the news of Vanessa’s death? Subconsciously, I had been constantly drawing comparisons, continuously searching for traits they shared.

It was a relief that I had consciously recognized it now. If I hadn’t, it was a dangerous habit that could have ended up deeply wounding the child.

“Why aren’t you answering? So, what sin did you commit?”

“Ah… it wasn’t because I committed a sin. If anything, the blunder was on God’s side. For a supposed deity, he was too stingy to part with a single treasure, so he caused me to be born as a cursed creature.”

“I see. I understand now.”

Lucalis nodded his head like a master detective.

“You’re just insane.”

Hey.

‘To think I went out of my way to tell him.’

“If you can’t believe it, you don’t have to. Hmm, then shall I tell you something else? I know your grandmother.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“No, I don’t mean it in that sense. I mean I know her on a personal level.”

“You claim you had a personal acquaintance with Emperor Vanessa?”

“It wasn’t just an acquaintance. We were close enough to drop all formalities.”

He was a sharp kid, so he must have realized it wasn’t a lie. Sure enough, his shaken pupils looked incredibly complex.

“Then you—”

“Hold on. It’s my turn now. Wouldn’t that be fair?”

A look of dissatisfaction crossed his face, but he didn’t object. Instead, he glared at me as if urging me to hurry up. In moments like these, his youthful age clearly showed.

“How old are you this year?”

“…Ten.”

In that manner, I managed to extract a few more pieces of information from Lucalis, whose name had been the only thing I knew. They were questions that weren’t burdensome to answer—slightly personal, completely trivial, but more than enough to get to know a wounded kitten a little better.

Among them, I took particular note of his very first answer.

‘Ten years old.’

A bitter smile played on my lips.

‘Of all ages, why that one?’

Out of all the countless numbers, it had to be ten years old again.

I had never believed in destiny, nor had I ever welcomed the concept. But if such a thing truly existed, whoever was pulling the strings was an absolute piece of work. Or had those gods up in the sky pulled some kind of stunt?

/No, we didn’t!

A desperate scream echoed in my ears.

I decided to prod a little further. Shall I go ahead and completely demolish all the temples for old times’ sake? I don’t know if there’s anything left of them, but if I dig all the way down to the basements, I’m bound to unearth something.

/Please, anything but that!

Judging by the reaction, it really might not be their doing. Hmm, well, I’ll put a pin in it for now.

“Stay here until your body is fully recovered. When the time comes…”

When you’ve grown enough to survive on your own.

“…I’ll throw you out of this forest even if you say you hate the idea. It won’t do you any good to cry and cling to me begging to stay then, so brace yourself in advance.”

“What utter bullshit.”

Muttering irritably, the boy backed away from me.

“Has your brain completely gone rotten? Cry and cling to you? Unless I lose my mind, that will never happen.”

…I kind of think so too, but did you really have to go that far, kid?

Though Lucalis’s gaze remained fierce, his guard had lowered significantly. As expected, the vow sworn upon mana had been the correct answer. Granted, the moment I died once, the vow would reset anyway, but let’s keep that little fact a secret.

And that very night.

Lucalis ran away.