The Forgotten Curse Knight - Chapter 48

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: nemui

◈ The Forgotten Curse Knight ◈

Vol. 3 Ch. 6: A Gentle Fairy Tale

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After parting with Gertrude and Beryl, Theo tucked Lenny into his pocket and headed for the recreation room.

The bookshelves there were crammed haphazardly with books brought in by generations of Gray Knights. He thought he would leave the booklet Gertrude had given him there.

He had certain reservations about the author of Termea Ecology: Ask Dr. Termea!, but its contents were exceptionally thorough. It was full of information the Gray Knights should share.

At a table in the recreation room, Carla, the white-haired, red-eyed girl, sat neatly in a chair with an open notebook before her.

Recently, Carla had not worn her mask inside Cinder House. Her childlike white face was seriously following the words on the page.

Usually, she wore a vague expression, adrift in her memories, so this was somewhat unusual.

"Carla."

When Theo called out to her, Carla suddenly raised her face.

Her unruly white hair puffed out before settling back into place. Her red eyes, round with surprise, looked at Theo.

"Sorry. Am I interrupting your studying?"

"Not studying... Reviewing... memories..."

Muttering that, Carla dragged the chair beside her closer.

After placing it directly next to her own, Carla looked up at Theo intently. Was he meant to sit there?

Theo quietly said, "Excuse me," and sat beside Carla.

With their arms and shoulders close enough to touch, he felt a little tense. As if to hide that tension, Theo looked at the notebook on the table.

Faded ink filled the old notebook. It had been written a very long time ago.

(So Carla has the Curse of Immortality...)

Carla apparently did not remember her own age, but she had surely lived longer than anyone else in Cinder House.

This notebook was probably quite old as well.

Carla shifted the open notebook so Theo could see it more easily.

"One day, a sly fox, hungry and cunning, found an apple tree ahead. Many glossy, bright-red apples hung from the sturdy, thick, magnificent tree."

Had Carla written these shaky letters? Theo recognized the story.

"Is this... the fairy tale 'The Fox and the Apples'?"

"Yes."

It was one of the old fairy tales.

The sly fox deceived the little rabbits and kept the apples all to himself. Then he ate the rabbits as well. Once the fox had eaten his fill and become too bloated to move, a bear gobbled him up whole.

But the story written in the notebook changed partway through.

"The sly fox felt sorry for the little rabbits and shared the apples with them. Then a bear came along, so the fox shared apples with the bear as well. The fox, rabbits, and bear ate apples together happily."

Theo gently turned the old notebook's pages. And turned them again.

They were all famous fairy tales, but their contents were slightly different.

Kind neighbors saved the foolish shepherd from the wolf. The shepherd built a fence and survived.

The older sister who was meant to be cruel to her younger sister came to adore her and gave her favorite ribbon as a gift.

The frightening king changed his ways and became kind to the people.

A gentle miracle came to the tragic princess, and she was happy in the end.

They were gentle stories, altered little by little so that they would not end sadly.

"Long ago, except when I fought Termea, I was locked in a dark room... There, I encountered a book... That book taught me these stories."

Carla had once said she was looking for a certain book.

If she could meet it again, she needed nothing else. She lived for that alone.

Surely she meant that book.

"Only when I was reading those stories did my heart feel light and fluffy... That was my happy time."

Theo felt someone's prayer in the stories written in the notebook.

It was a kind prayer that the children who read these stories would not be sad.

He hoped that prayer had been for Carla.

"When that book disappeared, I was very sad. I didn't want to forget. So... I wrote them down. So that I would not forget, even a little."

Carla traced the inked letters with her finger.

Her profile, usually so vague, now looked somehow sad.

"But it took me a very long time before I could use paper and a pen... I'm sure there are many stories I forgot. That makes me very sad."

"Then let's look for them together."

The words came out naturally.

Her white hair swayed, and her red eyes looked at Theo.

"Every story written here is based on an old fairy tale. So if we read collections of fairy tales, you might remember them."

There were no fairy-tale collections on the recreation room's bookshelves.

So the next time they went out, they could visit a bookshop and look for some. Or they could ask Noah and Mrs. Moran, the junior staff, to borrow some from the library.

"When you remember something after reading them, you can write it on these new pages... Huh?"

The notebook's entries stopped with only a few pages left.

And tucked into its last page was a small memo.

It had only one word written on it: "Theo."

Why was something like that tucked inside? Theo asked with his eyes, and Carla answered calmly.

"Because I don't want to forget, so I wrote it."

Theo's heart beat hard.

This notebook held precious memories Carla did not want to forget, and his name was tucked inside it.

Just those words, I don't want to forget, made him so happy he could hardly stand it.

He lowered his head so Carla would not see his grin, but Lenny poked its face out from his pocket.

"Mefuu."

"Sorry, Lenny. I can't lift my face right now."

He firmly tightened his slack expression. A knight could not grin so easily.

Theo lifted his composed face and looked at Carla. Her white skin was pale and bloodless. Her red eyes, usually vague, had stopped drifting in their drowsiness and were staring intently at Theo.

Sunlight streaming through the window shone through her silky white hair, making it sparkle.

For some reason, his chest tightened. Holding that feeling close, Theo spoke.

"Thank you for trying to remember me."

Carla looked as though she did not understand why he was thanking her. That was all right.

When he had lived in Worg, Theo had desperately raised his voice, made himself known, and worked hard, all in an effort to make people remember his face and name.

Even after working harder than anyone else, people only vaguely recognized him as "that little blond braid."

Just being treated as a member of the group, as though it were natural, made Theo so happy he could have cried.

"Theo."

Carla reached out. Her white fingertips touched Theo's small braid.

"I remember you."

The moment the girl spoke those words, the door to the room flew open.

The one who rushed in was Hugo, the freckle-faced boy with orange hair.

"Hey, Theo! This is bad, seriously bad! We've been summoned!"

Carla lowered her outstretched hand.

Theo calmed his loudly pounding heart and looked at Hugo.

"Summoned... for a mission?"

If they had been summoned, that was the only possibility he could think of.