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I couldn’t go up to the restaurant, but unexpectedly, I could go even higher than that.

Just below the top, which you could almost call the roof of the tallest building in our country, there was a considerable gap.

There was a part up there that reminded me of Sauron’s Eye from The Lord of the Rings, looking like a giant fork used for spearing meat, and there was a slender leg connecting it.

That leg looked a bit feeble for something attached to such a huge building, but no matter how I thought about it, it seemed that this leg was meant more for maintenance than for tourism.

And this building was charging an admission fee for this ‘Sky Bridge’.

Honestly, I don’t know who suggested we come up here first, but somehow our opinion turned into ‘It’s a rare opportunity, let’s check it out!’ and ultimately, we found ourselves here.

The leg didn’t look particularly trustworthy, but still, it had safety devices in place, like the straps connecting us to the railing and the safety personnel. Those measures looked a lot sturdier than the leg itself.

Generally speaking, this place felt far higher than any so-called ‘observation deck,’ as if it had crossed too many lines.

I read online that tickets could only be purchased on-site that day, so my older sister and I came here without much thought and ended up on this adventure.

“…”

Now that we were here, my sister looked like she had completely forgotten how to talk.

Her pupils were visibly shaking.

And I thought that was understandable.

Even my legs were trembling quite a bit.

The battlefield of Irrelaysia was almost a flat plain.

Of course, it wasn’t devoid of forests. There were woods worthy of the name ‘Great Forest,’ and in the distance, there were mountains that seemed to reach the sky. However, there was no reason to climb those mountains, and even the Great Forest was just an immensely vast stretch of trees with no ‘high’ places to scale.

We had to go up the city wall, but that didn’t mean the top was so narrow. The wind wasn’t howling fiercely there, and it didn’t thud every time we took a step.

No, it was even lower than that.

The autumn sky was clear. It was still before sunset, so I could see quite far away. If this were inside a building, I could enjoy it without any worries.

But… my sister who was practically glued to me, and my slightly trembling legs, showed that we weren’t on a platform behind a large glass window or wall, but rather on a thin bridge that could barely fit one person.

No matter how many safety measures there were, I was shaking. No matter who you are, if you fell from such a height, there would be nothing left.

“Ugh…”

My sister let out a slightly strained sound.

From what I had found online beforehand, they even make you do jumping jacks up here, but seeing my sister’s condition, the instructor probably decided against that.

“Should we go down if it’s too hard?”

“N-No…”

When I whispered softly, my sister shook her head.

With her eyes closed, she took several deep breaths and, after a struggle, finally opened her eyes.

“Ah…”

And then, she let out a small gasp.

It was understandable.

The beautiful weather allowed for clear visibility far into the distance.

Well, it looked like a cluster of little houses, continuing endlessly far away. Relatively small buildings were dotted among larger skyscrapers. Actually, calling them ‘small’ buildings felt weird. This was the heart of Seoul, where the buildings congregated.

The reason it seemed unrealistically high was just that we were up here. In reality, they were all multi-story buildings, and those towering structures were probably even bigger.

It reminded me of a mainboard inside a computer.

“…”

Up until we climbed, my sister had been scared to the point of being nearly paralyzed, but once she opened her eyes and saw the view, she seemed to feel more awe than fear.

From here, I could see the clean skyline of Seoul stretching endlessly.

“It’s beautiful.”

My sister probably said that before she even realized it.

I nodded without saying a word.

By chance, it turned out we were the only two people up here. It seemed we didn’t overlap with anyone else’s climbing time.

If we stayed silent, only the sound of the wind brushing past our ears could be heard. The commotion happening down below didn’t reach us at all.

Only after reaching this height did we truly realize.

Every little bit of those distant buildings must have people in them. There were surely people in those cars that looked like grains of rice and passing between those buildings. From this height, they didn’t look large enough to be clearly seen, but all of them were people living with thoughts and purposes of their own.

And among all those people, my sister and I met and could meet again like this.

What was the probability of that?

…At least enough to be thankful to the Goddess, I suppose.

“Si-Siyun…!?”

As I sat down, my sister exclaimed in surprise.

But even despite her shock and her trembling body, she squeezed in beside me.

We sat closely together, our legs hanging off the narrow bridge.

“Shall we take a picture together?”

When I asked, my sister nodded.

Both of us stretched out our legs.

Our two pairs of legs wearing bright red jumpsuits borrowed from the building faced forward.

Click! I took a picture with my smartphone.

We took a close-up shot of our faces, sitting tightly together. My sister looked so terrified that I almost burst out laughing, but I managed to hold it in.

At first, my sister had been trembling, but sitting so close to me must have calmed her down, as her shaking slowly subsided.

For a while, we sat there, relying on each other just like we did in our childhood.

As if there were only the two of us in the world.

*

“Phew…”

As we descended from the building, my sister let out a sigh of relief.

In fact, even on our way up, the structure couldn’t be strictly defined as inside the building, so my sister had been sticking tightly to me until we actually got inside.

…To be honest, even as we rode the elevator down, my sister stayed glued to me.

Of course, while going to the amusement park, we were holding hands too… but it was even more intimate than that. It seemed like she wasn’t concerned about the gazes of those around us anymore.

Of course, I had no intention of pushing my sister away. I actually liked it this close.

Having entered the building, we decided to take our time exploring the interior before heading out, and by the time we did, it was dinner time.

Since we hadn’t reserved a spot at the restaurant inside the building, we decided to go to a nearby meat restaurant.

In the last five years, we hadn’t even neared a pork belly place, but I had enough confidence in grilling meat. Believe it or not, I was someone who had survived in the field for the past five years.

When you tire of eating preserved foods soaked in salt, you tend to look for whatever you can eat. With my eyes on fire, if I spotted something that could be meat, I would grab it and prepare it right away. Even a rat as big as a human arm could look appetizing if properly prepared. Initially, we were repulsed, but after weeks of only eating salted preserved rations, it began to seem like a delicacy you could only taste in battle. Disease worries? No need for that. We had the Holy Sword and the Saintess with us.

Of course, our testimonies did not include eating rat meat. It wasn’t exactly a story that would inspire hope for soldiers in the battlefield.

…Besides, we were the lucky ones who managed to catch and eat wild animals roaming the plains, but rats don’t have the best reputation among battlefield soldiers. Especially since battlefield rats are known not only for transmitting diseases but also for digging into corpses while they feast. No matter how much we argued that the rat we ate had fallen from the battlefield, those soldiers who had seen such things would only see us as indirect consumers of corpses.

…Well, anyway.

Setting aside that dark story, I had become quite good at cooking something on the grill. My skills were even proven when we had to roast whole pigs at the forward base during the war.

“Wow, this is really delicious!”

Watching my sister’s eyes sparkle as she ate the meat I grilled made me realize that I had gained something substantial from all the hardships we faced there.

…Well, I probably wouldn’t have to use my rat-cooking skills again.

 

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