– Reseaech the Earth. Why?
A faint smile ran across Keli's face. He scooped up a spoonful of porridge and began talking while it hovered in front of her.
– Who would let a tiny thing like you study the earth, idiot? Why don't you come with us instead? We're studying the life of the First King, Rendi von Andel.
After saying this, he put the spoonful of porridge into his mouth.
– What's it to you? I'm doing what I like, aren't I?
Keli swallowed and continued speaking.
– That thing you like is no one's interested in it, and it's not useful to anyone."
Unwan showed no reaction and simply kept eating. But inside his mind, his words echoed in a way that stirred his irritation. If he didn't hold himself back, a fight would've definitely broken out.
But Unwan wasn't the kind of boy who got into fights easily. He quickly finished his meal, gathered all his utensils, handed them to the plump caretaker lady, and walked out through the exit.
He passed near the gate and headed east. His mind was buzzing with thoughts, accompanied by a strange mix of warmth and satisfaction.
'At least my stomach won't bother me anymore.'
He reached the place he had been aiming for. A small yard of the orphanage was separated from the huge forest by a two-meter-tall wooden fence. For a small boy, the forest ahead looked enormous. One of the logs was thinner than the rest and leaned slightly, leaving a gap just large enough for someone Unwan's size to slip through.
Without hesitation, Unwan squeezed into the opening. From there, the forest still looked gigantic, yet not at all dark. Shadows hung everywhere, but it was still bright enough to see any creature inside, if anything truly lived here.
Unwan, however, was already used to this place. He was simply heading toward his "work spot." He turned toward the bushes on the left, approached them, and stepped inside.
The little hideout contained several things: a few strange, perfectly smooth stones, a one-meter rope, a stack of papers sitting on a large rock, and others scattered on the ground.
"Must've been windy last night."
He gathered the papers back onto the rock, then slowly sat down. Today, he wanted to tackle a question that had been bothering him for a while. It intrigued him greatly, yet no one had ever given him a clear answer.
'Why are we pulled toward the ground? Why? Think… think.'
A fascinating question, yet so difficult that even great minds might fail to come up with ideas about it. And Unwan was only thirteen. How such questions even came to him was a mystery of its own.
After a few seconds of thinking, with no answer coming to mind, his head began to ache. He decided to take the easier route.
– If I were nature itself, what would I do? How would I make it?
Unwan chuckled softly, as if laughing at himself.
– Of course, I'd make it so that no one could ever know the real reason.
'No, wait.'
He picked up one of the smooth stones and placed it in front of where he sat.
– Here—this is the earth. We all live on it. No one has ever actually seen what it truly looks like, nor can anyone say for certain. But we have to trust it anyway. We don't really have a choice.
While speaking, he used his index and middle finger to mimic a tiny person walking across the "earth." He wasn't paying attention to the little finger-person until suddenly he froze it in place.
Because his "earth"—the stone had reached its very edge.
Unwan stared at it for a few seconds, then smirked.
'Hm. Interesting.'
He took a sheet of paper in his pocket and a cup filled with water. In front of him lay a small puddle in the ground, about the size of a hand. It was slightly damp, and with a little work, he could coax out some mud.
Unwan poured a bit of water into the puddle, then took something else from his pocket—a feather. It wasn't a large one, but around four or five centimeters long. He gently set it beside the puddle and went to the bushy "walls" of his little hideout.
Fortunately, some berries grew there. Unwan picked as many as he could find, enough to fill one hand. Then he returned to the puddle, squeezed the berries with all his strength, and let the juice drip into the puddle. The water slowly began to turn bluish. At first barely noticeable, then gradually a pale blue appeared.
Roughly a cup of berry juice mixed with the water. Unwan tossed in the remaining berries as well. To clean the sticky juice from his hand, he plunged it into the mixture.
'Almost done.'
He grabbed a triangular, sharp stone and scraped the bottom of the puddle. Immediately, a brownish color began to seep out. Unwan continued scraping a bit longer. Then he mixed everything together, forming a dark, ink-like fluid.
Ink for writing is ready.
From his past little "experiments," Unwan knew that mud and water alone didn't create a good color. And berry juice alone made the writing too sticky. But the combination of the two worked surprisingly well.
The mixture was thick enough—perfect for a boy who didn't have a proper quill. And his little feather wasn't very good anyway.
Unwan dipped the feather into the "ink" and began drawing on one of his papers. He drew the earth as a long flat line, then abruptly dropped the line downward at the edge.
– What if someone reached the edge of the world, had nowhere else to go… and just jumped? What would happen then? Would they fall down?
He smirked, as if he knew the answer, yet even after thinking for over an hour, he couldn't come up with anything. Because such a thing couldn't happen.
Then Unwan laughed and spoke again:
– So… the earth can't be flat. If it were flat, where would a falling person even go? Down? But where is that 'down,' exactly?