Chapter 46: A Selfish wish.
Everyone stepped inside the Tribal Chief’s house. The interior itself didn’t hold anything particularly fancy, consisting only of a long wooden table placed at the center while the rest of the room remained largely empty. If compared to the real world, the house bore a striking resemblance to the architectural style of ancient Japan.
Gre Ka Go comfortably took his seat on the right side of the table. Picking up a cleanly sliced piece of raw meat, he calmly dipped it into a small bowl filled with an unfamiliar liquid before breathing a gentle stream of fire across its surface. Within seconds, the meat turned slightly red, as though it had just been lightly cooked. Only then did he place it into his mouth, savoring each bite at an unhurried pace.
The gathered Magnari, seated along the opposite side of the table, watched the scene with unconcealed fascination.
Magnari possessed remarkably complex digestive systems. Unlike most creatures, they had no need to cook their food. As natives of Volcan, whatever they consumed would naturally soften the moment it entered their mouths, gradually becoming warmer, more tender, and far easier to swallow. Yet despite that natural adaptation, Gre Ka Go still insisted on lightly cooking his meals before eating them.
He seems to be enjoying that... Is it really that tasty?
Gree Ma Go unconsciously swallowed.
Noticing everyone’s attention fixed upon him, Gre Ka Go paused before letting out a faint smile.
"How about all of you give it a try? It tastes quite good."
The gathered Magnari looked at one another uncertainly. None of them had ever considered preparing their food in such a manner before. Since their bodies naturally did the work for them, cooking had never seemed necessary. Even so, Gre Ka Go’s gentle insistence eventually won them over.
One by one, they picked up a slice of meat, dipped it into the strange liquid, lightly seared it with their flames, and cautiously took a bite.
"...This..."
"...This is truly delicious..."
"I never thought of eating it like this..."
Small murmurs of surprise spread throughout the room as several Magnari stared at the remaining slices in their hands with newfound appreciation.
Gre Ka Go couldn’t help but smile.
"Told you, didn’t I?"
He leaned back comfortably, allowing the quiet excitement to settle before his gaze slowly drifted across every Magnari seated before him. The warmth in his expression remained unchanged, though his voice became noticeably gentler.
"So....the questions you said you wanted to ask me..."
Silence.
The moment Gre Ka Go finished speaking, the room gradually fell quiet.
The Magnari exchanged hesitant glances with one another, each silently hoping someone else would ask first. They had spent countless days rehearsing questions inside their own minds, yet now that the opportunity had finally arrived, none of them knew where to begin. Every question somehow felt important, yet choosing one meant setting all the others aside.
Gre Ka Go patiently waited. He neither urged them nor appeared bothered by the silence, simply taking another bite of the lightly seared meat while allowing them the time to gather their thoughts.
Eventually, Gree Ma Go drew in a slow breath.
"Brother Gre Ka Go..."
"Hm?"
"...May I ask something first?"
Gre Ka Go looked toward him before giving a small nod.
"Go ahead."
Gree Ma Go lowered his gaze toward the wooden table, his fingers unconsciously brushing across its rough surface.
"That day... during the Burial..."
His voice gradually softened.
"...Why did you look so sad?"
The question seemed to catch Gre Ka Go slightly off guard.
"...Sad?"
Gree Ma Go quietly nodded.
"You’ve always remained calm. Even when predators surrounded us... even when our people died... even when the settlement was on the verge of collapsing, you always looked as though everything was still under control. There was never a moment where I thought... Brother Gre Ka Go had lost his composure."
His fingers slowly tightened against the edge of the table.
"But... that day..."
He hesitated, struggling to describe what he had witnessed.
"...You looked lonely."
The room quietly fell silent.
That single word lingered far longer than anyone had expected.
Gre Ka Go lowered his gaze toward the wooden table before him, absentmindedly turning the wooden bowl between his fingers. A faint chuckle escaped him, though it carried little amusement.
"...Was I really looking that miserable?"
Some of the Magnari awkwardly scratched the backs of their heads while others simply nodded. No one laughed. No one denied it. To them, Gre Ka Go had looked unlike himself that day.
He quietly acknowledged their reactions before letting out a slow breath.
"I... don’t really know how I should explain it."
A small smile appeared on his face, though it seemed more directed toward himself than anyone else.
"It’s a rather difficult feeling. My worries didn’t begin on the day of the Burial, nor was that the only day I felt sad. The questions all of you have today... they’re merely the result of my actions during the Burial, and those actions themselves were the result of thoughts I had been carrying long before any of this happened."
He paused for a brief moment, as though arranging those thoughts into words.
"You asked me why I looked sad..."
"...Then I should answer that question properly."
His gaze slowly drifted across everyone seated before him.
"I was sad... because that day I wasn’t mourning only those who had died."
Confusion immediately spread throughout the room.
Their expressions gradually shifted from curiosity to bewilderment. Some frowned in thought while others instinctively lowered their heads, silently turning those words over inside their minds, as though the answer might reveal itself if they thought hard enough.
"The Burial... wasn’t it for the dead?" one of the younger Magnari finally asked. "So if you weren’t mourning only them... then whom were you mourning, Tribal Chief? And... why did you mourn them?"
Gre Ka Go let out another quiet chuckle before lowering his gaze once more.
"I..."
He paused.
"...I was mourning everyone."
"Everyone?"
Gre Ka Go quietly nodded.
"The ones who have already died... the ones who are still alive... and even the countless people who will one day meet the same fate."
His fingers unconsciously traced the rim of the bowl before him.
"I was mourning everyone because, as I continued living alongside all of you, I found myself thinking about things I had never questioned before. Do all of you remember the first time we lost an elder because of old age?"
Several Magnari slowly nodded, though none of them understood where the conversation was leading.
"That day remained in my thoughts for a very long time. I watched as we carried the elder beyond the settlement and left the body for the predators. At first... I accepted it without much thought because that was simply how things had always been. None of us hated the dead, nor did we believe we were doing anything wrong. To us, once someone died, their body no longer served any purpose, so returning it to nature felt... normal."
His voice remained calm, yet every Magnari found themselves listening more intently than before.
"But the more I thought about it... the less satisfied I became with that answer. I kept asking myself why. Just because someone had died... had they truly become useless? The elder who had hunted beside us, laughed with us, guided us, and spent an entire lifetime living amongst us... had all of that suddenly lost its worth simply because their heart had stopped beating?"
He smiled faintly.
"And then another thought followed."
"If one day... I also reached the end of my life... would I be any different? Would everything I had experienced, everything I had learned, everything I had tried to leave behind... simply disappear the moment I died? Would all of you carry my body beyond the settlement... and think nothing more of it?"
He looked around the room before gently shaking his head.
"I wasn’t questioning our custom because I believed it was wrong. I questioned it because... no matter how hard I tried... I couldn’t convince myself that a life could lose all of its meaning the moment it came to an end."
The room remained silent.
Not because they had found an answer...
But because, for the first time in their lives...
Someone had questioned something they had never realized could be questioned.
"...Is that how... you came up with the Burial?"
Gre Ka Go slowly shook his head.
"...No."
"My questioning didn’t end there. If anything... that was merely where it began. I didn’t come up with the Burial that day. Instead... every answer I found only gave birth to another question. The more I thought about it... the deeper those questions became, and somewhere along the way... I realized something."
He let out a quiet chuckle, one that sounded almost embarrassed.
"...I am selfish."
The Magnari looked at one another in confusion.
"I didn’t want to simply disappear because I had died. I didn’t want everything I had experienced with all of you to end the moment my heart stopped beating. I wanted... somehow... to remain among you."
His fingers gently rested upon the table.
"I wanted to leave behind something that would anchor me to the people I cherished. I wanted all of you to remember me... not because you were forced to... but because, whenever you passed by that place, you would remember that I had once laughed with you, hunted beside you, argued with you... and lived alongside you."
He smiled faintly, his gaze drifting toward the floor.
"One question led to another, and before I realized it, I had begun searching for a way to make that wish possible. That search eventually led me to what we now call the Burial."
He paused briefly before giving a helpless smile.
"I know a grave won’t preserve my body forever. Time will eventually claim it just as it claims everything else. Yet... somehow... I found comfort in that. Even if it was only for a little while... I would still remain with all of you. A place would exist where my life had once rested... and perhaps, whenever someone walked past it... they would remember that I had once been there."
He quietly lowered his gaze.
"...That alone... made me happy."
The Magnari quietly looked at one another, their eyes carrying a newfound glimmer as the knot within their hearts gradually loosened. They still couldn’t fully comprehend Gre Ka Go’s thoughts, nor did they pretend to understand every word he had spoken, yet for the very first time, it felt as though they had begun seeing the person behind their Tribal Chief.
Until now, Gre Ka Go had always appeared distant in their eyes. Calm beyond reason. Wise beyond their understanding. Every decision he made eventually revealed its purpose, yet the path that led him to those decisions had always remained a mystery.
Now...
For the first time...
They could vaguely see that path.
Their hesitation gradually faded, replaced by an even greater curiosity. Rather than feeling intimidated by the countless questions lingering within their hearts, they found themselves eager to hear the answers hidden behind them.
Before anyone could speak again, however...
Thud.
A loud sound echoed from somewhere behind them.