Star Rail: Starting with a Lyre, Living off Busking [53]

After the brief moment earlier, Pela’s spirits lifted, and she resumed walking slowly alongside Venti down the street.

She no longer felt the awkward pressure to find common topics with him and instead began earnestly explaining some intelligence-gathering techniques.

For Venti, though, such tips weren’t necessary. After all, as long as the winds of the world continued to blow, there was no secret that could escape his ears.

But that didn’t mean he wanted to use this ability.

If possible, he preferred to create genuine memories of his own, making this journey all the more precious.

So, they strolled along, her teaching, him listening. Before long, they reached a quiet plaza, where the Everwinter Monument stood, casting a soft, ghostly glow.

Pela paused her lecture, aware that, while Venti was smart and quick to grasp her points, too much information at once would be overwhelming.

And more than that, she had her own secret to share with him.

When she looked at the Everwinter Monument, a powerful emotion welled up in her heart.

“It seems Pela has a soft spot for this place. Wasn’t this where we first met?”

Venti’s tone was light.

“Indeed. But you were so bold that day…”

A faint trace of frustration crept into Pela’s expression.

“To think you’d sing such forbidden songs right in front of the Administrative Zone officials.”

“Eh-heh. Well, I was new here and didn’t know the rules yet!” Venti chuckled playfully.

“True enough. If you’d grown up in Belobog, I doubt you’d act the way you do now.”

Pela shook her head, saddened by the stagnation she saw in her city.

“Mind if I ask why?”

“There’s no special reason. It’s just how I feel.”

She adjusted her glasses, her tone regretful.

“Once, there were so many dreamers like you. But somewhere along the line, people stopped looking beyond the walls.”

“…”

Venti stayed respectfully silent, his gaze drifting to the Wall of Heroes supporting the Everwinter Monument. Pela’s eyes rested on one name in particular.

It bore the same family name as hers—a name weathered by time but still enduring, marking someone long gone.

After a quiet moment, Pela spoke in a voice so low that only Venti could hear.

“Did you know, before Lady Cocolia became the Supreme Guardian, Belobog’s builders never stopped exploring beyond the walls—”

Her tone was cold and distant.

“They wondered what might lie outside. Was there more than just snow and Fragmentum? Could there be other surviving civilizations or people out there?”

“Driven by these questions, a group of scholars and explorers formed an expedition.”

“Their goal was to discover the world beyond Belobog and perhaps find a new home for us all.”

It was an idea worthy of admiration.

“But investigating the outside world was dangerous. Beyond the Fragmentum, there were also the snowfield’s unpredictable weather and countless other obstacles. These dangers claimed the lives of many who ventured out.”

As Pela recounted the story, her words conjured vivid images in Venti’s mind.

“Still, despite everything, people didn’t give up. My mother, the great adventurer Penia, was one of them—she traveled further than any of them.”

Her gaze held a hint of pride, as if she were reliving her childhood days, waiting eagerly for her mother to return and share stories of the outside world.

“She always said that if she could make it past the snowfields, she’d reach a whole new continent.”

“A land where the seasons changed, where plants grew without greenhouses, where people spoke languages different from ours.”

“Every time she came back, I’d ask her if she’d found that place. And every time, she’d tell me she’d gotten one step closer.”

“At this, Pela’s expression grew more complicated.”

“I never doubted her. To me, she was the most amazing person in the world—someone who could go to such distant places would surely find us a new home.”

“So I shared her ideas with my friends.”

“They didn’t understand, and they often mocked me for it, but I didn’t mind. I thought they were just jealous of how amazing my mother was.”

“It was around that time I started reading.”

“Stories had a beautiful logic to them. Just by arranging words, they could create vast adventures. With a little effort and patience, I could learn so much from them, find comfort even.”

When her mother found out, she encouraged her, entrusting Pela with her adventure journal and hoping Pela would one day write her own story.

Those words stayed with her, and Pela threw herself into her studies, hoping to join the expedition team and explore new lands alongside her mother. She even had a title picked out for her future memoir.

But unlike her, who had blind faith in the expedition’s success, her mother’s journeys grew fewer. Even when she returned, she spoke less and less about the world outside.

“The expeditions kept meeting setbacks, the best discovery being a frozen lake, with ice tens of meters thick.”

“The team’s best efforts revealed that nothing could survive beneath those waters, leaving everyone disappointed.”

“With each failure, hope for the expedition dwindled, and soon people began seeing it as a waste of resources. The public grew more critical.”

“For me, though, I just believed one grand success from my mother could silence all that gossip.”

“Until one day… her face was missing from the returning team…”

She paused, noticing Venti’s downcast expression, as if he were reliving his own memories alongside her. She continued.

“They searched everywhere but couldn’t find her, until an old woman stopped the caravan, asking why her son wasn’t with them.”

“The leader pointed to the end of the line, to an area draped in white cloth.”

‘We’re sorry, ma’am. Mr. Alexei had an accident while scouting a path for the expedition. His sacrifice will be remembered…’

“The old woman nearly broke down, but she asked if he’d helped humanity.”

“But the leader remained silent, leading the others away as the woman sobbed. I couldn’t bear to watch.”

“Or maybe it was the outline beneath the cloth—someone with a figure similar to my mother’s—that scared me. I ran home, too afraid to stay.”

“That night, Mother didn’t come back, and my father only returned the next morning, dazed, with a Silvermane Guard by his side.”

“I stayed up all night, asking him where Mother was, and he told me she’d reached her dream home, but a rare ice storm had come, so she couldn’t come back yet.”

“He gave me her glasses, saying they were a gift for our promised reunion…”

Here, Pela’s voice softened, her gaze returning to the name engraved on the monument.

“Since then, I stopped thinking about the expeditions, and my father didn’t mention them either.”

“It wasn’t until I joined Belobog’s Officer Academy that I met a retired expedition member, a teacher at our tech institute who had been good friends with my mother.”

“She recognized me and told me that the team had always regretted what happened. It was a sorrow they would carry for the rest of their lives.”

“After all, after that half-crew loss, the Supreme Guardian disbanded the scientific expedition team. My mother, as one of those who’d sacrificed everything, had her name engraved here.”

“But what I felt most wasn’t sadness—it was emptiness.”

“Of everything my mother left behind, only this name remained.”

 “Her spirit of exploration, her dreams of distant lands, all vanished when the expedition was disbanded.”

“Only words, and those who couldn’t forget the past, still remembered this piece of history lost to the wind and snow.”