Chapter 1
Prologue
On a day like today, when I had been beaten to a pulp and robbed of my earnings, I dunked my swollen face into a puddle by the roadside. That's when I recalled the girl in the white dress.
In the field of sunflowers, her silver hair had flowed. She looked straight into my eyes—hers the same color as her hair.
Promise me you won't cry anymore.
Even if you're lonely, doing bad things isn't okay. Understood?
I had nodded earnestly in response. She smiled, beaming like a sunflower, and stretched to hug me. She didn't mind her clean dress getting dirty. For some reason, I wanted to cry, even though I had just promised not to. I held back my tears. Her warmth and pleasant scent brought forth feelings unfamiliar to me. They washed away the pain, sadness, and misery.
Lifting my face from the half-frozen puddle, I wiped my forehead with the cuff of my sleeve. The mixture of dirt and blood clung thickly to the frayed fabric. Touching my head, I felt two large bumps.
The group that had attacked me earlier were street orphans of Levam. Mistaking me for an Amatsu person, they struck suddenly. There were six of them. I stood no chance. They took all the money I had earned from collecting scrap metal earlier today.
It's not the first time I've been attacked by an orphan group. Here in the Amadra district of the Rio de Este slum, violent incidents were as common as the crowing of roosters. No one paid them any mind. Being half Amatsu from my mother's side and half Levam from my father's side made it worse—both groups targeted me. Ever since my mother was stabbed to death by a drunkard about a year ago, I belonged to neither group. I survived day by day in this slum, friendless and alone.
Bestad.
In this city, they branded people with two ancestries a Bestad and shunned us. In a buffer zone like San Martilia, where two powers intermingled and the socio-political climate changed often, a Bestad could belong to either nation. To them, we were the epitome of an untrustworthy people. But in truth, being a Bestad brought no advantages. We were rejected by both sides, facing only endless disdain and persecution. That's why I'm destined to be trampled on until the day I die.
I clutched my aching head with one hand and my empty stomach with the other. Shivering in the frozen air, I wandered the streets looking for a place to sleep. Every so often, a harsh, metallic cough burst from deep within my lungs.
Rotten vegetables, household trash, horse dung, and urine littered the cobblestone streets. People who had never bathed in their lives wore clothes that had never been washed, swigging gin as they passed by, hurling coarse words at each other with mouths that had never known a toothbrush. Various body odors hung in the air and dark substances fell from the sky, splashing down on the contents of the slop buckets thrown out of homes. It was a disaster for anyone unlucky enough to be hit directly, as they had to bathe even in the dead of winter. I tried to walk close to the buildings, glancing up at the December sky.
The narrow slice of sky, framed by the buildings, was a solid gray.
I haven't seen the sunlight in quite some time.
Since everyone burned coal stoves in winter, a thin layer of charcoal-colored smog covered the city, filling the air with soot. The city's air likely caused my cough.
The last time I had eaten was three days ago. My body was weak, and I felt my extremities freezing. The pain and the sadness brought me to tears, but I held back because I had promised that sweet girl I wouldn't cry anymore.
But even so, there was only so much one could take—there were limits to everything.
I stopped moving forward.
I collapsed by the roadside, lying down on the cold, dirty street.
Surviving alone in this city as a Bestad was impossible. The Levam and the Amatsu people would never get along. Consequently, there was no place for me, who carried the blood of both groups. If a resting place existed, it would not be on this earth, but beyond the clouds, above the sky.
I'll sleep here.
I'll close my eyes and think of that girl. Then by morning, I'll just be another frozen orphan’s corpse. The street cleaners will reluctantly grab my lifeless hand, throwing my body into the trash heap with dead dogs and crows. Then they'll incinerate it at the outskirts of town. That's fine. Living is sad and painful. It's an ultimately meaningless task. If so, I'd rather become nothing.
Just as I made up my mind, a distant thunderclap struck my ears.
The vibration was deep and heavy, shaking the atmosphere and reaching down into my stomach.
I quickly realized it wasn't thunder. I turned onto my back and looked straight up at the cloudy sky.
The sky raged like a stormy sea, the clouds boiling, murmuring, and swirling around.
A sound like the buzzing of giant bees came from beyond the storm.
The thick clouds that hung over the city were torn apart like silk.
Gaps opened up, and beams of sunlight streamed through, slicing the dark sky and painting the filthy streets gold.
Then, the caterpillar-shaped flying battleship descended, tearing through the clouds. The large vessel was over 110 meters long and weighed more than 40,000 tons. Six massive lift devices that were attached to the rounded hull ripped through the sea of clouds with tremendous noise. It's intimidating presence commanded the sky. Semicircular bastions jutted out from both sides, the large-caliber guns monitoring the entire airspace.
Ohhh!
The people in the streets called out—the Levam cheering with pride, the Amatsu clenching their teeth in frustration. Everyone stopped, craning their necks to the sky, and gazed up at the majestic battleship, as if it were a messenger from the heavens.
The sight of 60,000 tons of metal serenely flying through the sky always inspired awe. It was a feat made possible by the immense power of hydrogen cells. Even I, lying on the street and near death, felt ecstacy in my chest. It wasn't a bad last scene to witness in this world.
The lift devices roared. Glaring down upon the Amadra district, the battleship turned its bow east. Perhaps to provoke the border areas of the Imperial Amatsukami. The Levam royal family, flaunting their aerial strength, aimed to carve out more Amatsukami territory. Lately, such displays of power by the airship fleets had become more frequent.
A tremendous roar, like crossing an icy sea, drug behind the flying battleship as it pushed through the clouds ahead of it and left my field of vision. The sky cleared up significantly, and the crisp December sunlight brightened up the streets.
A dozen propeller fighters, known as Aires, flocked around the warship. Although the sound of the lift devices overpowered the propeller noise, the shiny new aircraft sparkled in the sunlight, their wings outstretched elegantly as they flew across the blue sky.
Lying on my back, I watched the imposing warship and the fighters intently.
The sky is so beautiful.