Kirikiri was an unfortunate rabbit.
She herself thought so.
Perhaps the most unfortunate rabbit in the world,
Throughout the past and the future.
It was a belief that she always had.
Today, on the eve of the festival, she was kicked out of town, and her belief was confirmed.
Kirikiri was an unfortunate rabbit.
Kirikiri was well aware of the use of pearls and their importance.
But the day she has to go on a trip to the human city to get pearls, why does it have to be today, the day before the festival?
She didn’t even know why the priest Hara shattered hundreds of pearls in a matter of days, which was normally enough for ten years.
Kirikiri thought that the priest Hara may have deliberately kicked her out of the village.
Because they can’t keep an ominous rabbit like her in the town where the festival is held.
It was a baseless suspicion, but she also had no basis to deny the suspicion.
She left the village with a backpack the size of her own body, full of travel items.
As she went down the stairs outside the village in sorrow, her eyes turned bright red several times and she could see a few blurry faces..
She kept sniffling, trying to hold back the tears, but the tears eventually broke out.
As she sat down on the stairs and cried, the sun was setting.
Looking at the sunset, Kirikiri thought,
I want to go home right now.
I’ll make some sort of excuse for something.
‘It’s too late, so I’ll leave tomorrow!’
She wanted to find some reason not to go.
Naturally.
Get a good night’s sleep and leave tomorrow after the festival is over.
She wished that she could do so.
But Kirikiri could not disobey the priest’s orders.
She eventually started going down the stairs again.
She had to go down the mountain until the sun went down completely.
At the entrance to the village, at the end of the stairs, there was a pot.
Kirikiri, who was walking down the stairs in a daze, couldn’t find the pot.
Eventually she stepped on the pot and fell.
Fortunately, the pot was not hot.
The pot was half-burnt and full of sugar.
It was precious sugar, but Kirikiri fell on it and overturned everything.
The sugar was mixed with the soil.
Other rabbits would start eating the sugar regardless of the dirt, but Kirikiri didn’t.
Instead, she became even more depressed when she recalled her situation while looking at the mixture of dirt and sugar.
Her backpack was falling down the hillside.
It looks like she dropped it when she fell.
Kirikiri sighed as she looked at the backpack that was rolling down in the distance.
Kirikiri went down the hillside to pick up her backpack.
If it had been another rabbit, she would have jumped down, but Kirikiri had to crawl down gently so as not to fall down again and fall down the hillside.
Human limbs were not suitable for climbing mountains.
Fortunately, the backpack was rescued without any problems.
When she got her backpack back, the problem was that the sun had completely disappeared from the sky. It was night.
It became difficult to go down the road.
She had to walk, relying on the moonlight, carefully watching the ground.
After walking like that for a while, her feet hurt so much.
She stopped and looked at the soles of her feet.
It was dirty with dirt and bits of grass.
When she brushed it off, the soles of her feet were swollen.
When she went to the human city, she felt like she had to get shoes first.
There is no need for shoes in the village.
The roads in the village were so well-made that even Kirikiri, who had soft and fragile soles, could walk around with confidence.
Of course, the other rabbits won’t need shoes outside of town either.
Their feet were strong enough to hop around on a rocky field.
She made shoes by wrapping the soles of her feet with large leaves and tying them with tree trunks.
She started walking again, stuttering.
As she walked, she arrived at the human village.
After thinking for a while, Kirikiri entered the village.
It was too late to see the way, and she was too tired.
She seemed to prefer to sleep in the village rather than in the camp.
The small town had neither walls nor doors.
The smart Kirikiri remembered the human language she learned from her parents as a child.
She soon found a building that said it was an inn.
As soon as she stood in front of the inn door, Kirikiri became anxious.
In fact, this was the first time Kirikiri had left the village alone.
Because she was so sad that she had been kicked out of town she had forgotten about her other worries, but then they finally came rushing back.
She wasn’t even sure if she could safely go to the human city with just one map.
She was also worried that she might meet a scary person.
A long time ago, her father said, “Humans are different on the outside, and there are many lies in their words.”
And he proved that to her.
By leaving Kirikiri in the village and disappearing alone.
The village’s older rabbits said that a good man impresses even the heavenly gods with his goodness, but an evil man, like a full-bodied bear, deceives and harms those who are weaker than him for no reason.
Kirikiri was determined.
She thought that if she showed strength, the humans would not see her in vain, nor would they dare to deceive or harm her.
Just then, a human voice came from beyond the door.
Kirikiri slammed the door open.
The man inside the inn looked at Kirikiri and the loud sound of the door.
It was the High Seeker who stayed in the hall drinking wine even though the innkeeper had gone to sleep.
Kirikiri, who made eye contact with the high seeker, snorted loudly.
“Hng!”
Then, she moved into the inn with confidence.
It would have been if her backpack hadn’t hung on the inn door, and she hadn’t tripped over.
“Kyang!”
* * *
It was a rather embarrassing encounter.
Kirikiri picked up the items from the high seeker and put them in her backpack, she could feel her face burning red.
Kirikiri adhered to a wary attitude towards the high seeker, but the high seeker accepted it all with a smile.
The two quickly became friends.
The vigilance of the rabbit was too shallow.
Just by listening carefully and giving a little sugar as a gift, the alertness disappeared.
“You’re a really nice person!”
Kirikiri was convinced.
She thought that the high seeker was a good person, and that good people were trustworthy.
She took the sugar the high seeker gave her and ate it without any doubt.
She dipped her fingers in sugar and sucked them up.
It wasn’t as much as the other rabbits, but Kirikiri also liked sweets.
Perhaps it is a geographical reason rather than a characteristic of the rabbits.
It is difficult to find sweets on the plateau.
At least a bit of a bitter raspberry.
It was not strange that the rabbits who were used to eating bitter grass liked sweet things.
[It’s strange, the rabbits I know didn’t look like that.]
The quiet sword whispered to the high seeker.
The sword said, the rabbit on the plateau, is a beast much closer to a rabbit than a human being.
However, the Kirikiri in front of them was a beast that had no difference from a human except for her rabbit ears.
The high seeker thought he’d ask later when he had the chance, so he saved the question posed by the sword for later.
The conversation eventually led to the purpose of the high seeker’s trip.
The high seeker said he wanted to climb the plateau, speaking frankly.
Kirikiri clapped her hands and said.
“Sugar!”
“Sugar?”
“The sugar pot in front of the stairs!”
Kirikiri remembered the pot left in front of the stairs.
She tripped herself and fell.
The high seeker burned sugar to summon the rabbits, but they didn’t respond, so he left it alone.
“Heheng, that’s the old way.”
“Is that so?”
Kirikiri explained.
“In the past, humans could be invited with sugar. Not these days.”
It was just as the sword had told the high seeker.
[Look, I was right. In the past, you could enter only with sugar.]
The High Seeker asked Kirikiri why the rabbits no longer allowed humans.
As the high seeker who had to climb the plateau, he had to know why.
“We don’t invite humans anymore.”
Kirikiri said with a suddenly darkened face.
“They make a family in the village and then suddenly leave. Our village is too boring for humans. If they disappear like that, all the remaining rabbits will be sad.”
Kirikiri quickly became pale.
The high seeker looked at the sword unconsciously.
The sword was silent, not saying anything.
The high seeker didn’t ask in detail.
He asked why she had left the town instead.
Kirikiri meekly said she had some things to get in the human city, and the high seeker volunteered to guide her.
In return, he said he would like to visit the village for a while.
After thinking for a while, Kirikiri accepted the offer.
Other rabbits wouldn’t like to invite humans, but she thought it would be okay if it was just to watch for a while rather than settle down.
Kirikiri was delighted.
She has a good human friend who leads the way to the human city.
Kirikiri gulped and drank the wine that the high seeker poured.
She hated it because it was bitter at first, but when she added a little honey, she got excited and started drinking it.
“Heheng.”
Kirikiri felt better.
Kirikiri, who was drunk for the first time, was excited and began to unpack her story.
Kirikiri, who had confided her words, quickly slammed her forehead onto the table and fell asleep.
The high seeker laid Kirikiri on the bed in the room he had reserved, and then went back to the inn’s hall and started drinking the remaining wine.
The high seeker thought about the stories Kirikiri was talking about while drunk.
[As far as I know, the fortune-telling of rabbits has two meanings. The degree and direction of luck.]
Kirikiri says, was given a fortune telling signifying a new beginning.
She didn’t tell him the extent of that luck.
[It’s obvious when they tell you the direction of your luck, but if they hadn’t told you about the extent of it, it’d be obvious, well, you’ve had a lot of bad luck.]
And Kirikiri was told that the priest had ordered her to go on a trip the day before the festival.
[If bad luck strikes, it’s worth sending out on the eve of the festival. How anxious they would be if there was a person with great bad luck in that sacred festival.]
He thought it was too much though.
The high seeker felt sad as he heard Kirikiri drunk.
He could see how heartbroken she was because she had been absent from the festival.
[Because it is an important day. It is to face the god of the race of beasts. Say hello to that god and talk to each other. Talk about what has happened in the past, and discuss what will happen in the future. It is the most important day politically, religiously, and emotionally.]
It’s a face to face with God.
The High Seeker wondered what it would be like if there was a festival where he could face the God of Light.
It’s going to be a mess.
Some devotees may go crazy and say let’s burn the continent to celebrate.
If it were the brothers and sisters of the church that he knew, it would be more than that.
[Anyway, be careful. If she received the fortune-telling of bad luck as she expected, and if she was sent out before the festival, all sorts of dog shit things will happen to that rabbit from tomorrow.]
It seems that what the sword wanted to say was this request.
The high seeker nodded his head saying he knew.
He thought that he might have met the rabbit at the inn, perhaps it was good luck.
Any misfortune can be prevented.
It was an illusion.
The next morning, the greatest misfortune began with the high seeker.
