I went for my usual walk through the forest. As a small game, a sparrow fluttered toward me and perched in its favorite spot atop my head. Up until then, it was just like any other day.
The sparrow, which usually stayed there brazenly until my walk was finished, suddenly took flight. Then, a man emerged from the shadows of the trees ahead. I had no idea how long he had been standing there, but he was unmistakably human. Faced with this sudden encounter, I could only stand frozen, unable to manage a single reaction.
"Ah—well, you see..."
The man, who looked to be approaching old age, spoke to me. He seemed to be struggling to find his first words as well. With a troubled expression, he scratched his head over his hat.
"I am Han Mock, a Professional Hunter. I live on this island to research the ecology of the birds that inhabit this area. Who are you?"
A Professional Hunter... was he a woodsman? I had thought this was a deserted island, but it seemed someone lived here. It was obvious to him that I was an outsider, so it was only natural for him to question me.
However, I couldn't answer. I couldn't even force out a proper word, so I looked away out of awkwardness.
I had considered what to do if I met someone. But now that it was actually happening, those simulations were proving entirely useless. Should I say I drifted here after a shipwreck, or that I had amnesia and couldn't remember anything? No matter how I thought about it, I could only come up with excuses that sounded suspicious.
Then again, I couldn't exactly tell him the truth. If I told him my true identity was an ant, he wouldn't believe me, and if he did believe me, things would get even more troublesome. Besides, there was more I didn't understand about my own situation than what I did.
"Are you lost?"
When I remained silent, the man asked. I nodded. For now, I would go with being lost.
"Parents?"
I shook my head.
"Do you want to leave the island?"
I nodded vigorously.
"I see... follow me."
With that, the man turned his back and started walking. I was relieved he didn't press for details, but was it really okay to follow him? Still, if I ran away now, it would only make me look more suspicious. And if I could leave the island easily, this was a perfect opportunity.
I followed him, keeping just enough distance so I wouldn't lose sight of him.
---
The place I was led to was deep in the forest, in a region where the steep cliffs at the foot of a mountain were exposed. The footing was poor here, and snow had piled up on unstable rocks, so I usually avoided this area.
However, as I followed the footprints Mock left in the snow, I strangely never lost my footing. There seemed to be a path. Hidden beneath a recessed rock shelf, a building came into view. He unlocked the door and went inside.
I had assumed he would lead me to a pier, but we had arrived at an unexpected location. Mock didn't seem to be trying to force me to go with him; in fact, he walked ahead quite briskly. He did, however, wait whenever my pace slowed.
Eventually, I followed him inside. Unlike the mountain hut I had been staying in, there was no dusty air; it had the scent of a place where a person actually lived. However, piles of books and files were crammed into every corner, so it wasn't exactly tidy.
"Do you drink coffee?"
Mock was lighting a wood-burning stove. He cleared a table piled with documents and sat in a chair. He gestured for me to sit as well, and I tentatively obeyed.
"Now then... technically, this island is off-limits to unauthorized civilians. It's for environmental preservation and to crack down on poaching... but even putting those circumstances aside, I can't just send you off without hearing anything about your background."
It seemed he hadn't just let me off the hook. Rather, he had brought me here to interrogate me. I felt a slight sense of having been tricked.
"Don't look at me like that. This is a necessary measure to protect you... but well, I can see you have reasons for not wanting to talk. It's probably not something you can just tell a stranger right away."
The only sound in the room was the crackling of the stove. In the uncomfortable silence, I could only look down.
"Rare birds live on this island. Did you see a small white bird?"
Mock suddenly changed the subject. He must be talking about that sparrow. Since I had seen them so often I was bored of it, I nodded honestly.
"Its formal name is the Salt-crested Hook-billed Swallow. Strange name, isn't it?"
When I nodded, he added, "It's a name I gave it." He had a permanent scowl on his face, so I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
"It was over thirty years ago, back when I was a researcher at a university, that I discovered that bird by chance. They are extremely wary, and much of their ecology remains a mystery. Initially, they were confused with a similar species, but as I continued my research, I found they were entirely different."
He said it was luck that allowed him to find them. They were so elusive they could be called phantom birds; their population was unknown, but their habitat was limited to a very small area, and they were designated as an endangered species.
Even so, the sparrows on this island seemed quite used to people.
"I saw that bird perched on your body. Normally, that's impossible. Generally speaking, wild animals have a sense that allows them to acutely perceive anything that causes them stress. This bird is particularly sensitive."
He said they could even die of shock just from being captured. One could say they were on the verge of extinction because their senses were too strong. It could be called natural selection. Because of that, artificial breeding was currently considered impossible.
"Even so, there are scum who want to get their hands on them, even if they're dead. Idiots will occasionally pour large sums of money into hiring poachers just because they're rare. But catching this bird isn't easy. They won't approach anyone who shows even a hint of greed. That's why I knew immediately that you didn't come to this island with bad intentions."
It was true that I had never wanted to do anything to the birds. But would wild animals really approach so carelessly just because of that? I didn't think he was lying.
What did the birds feel from me, and what did they not feel? Perhaps I was just convinced that I was identical to a human, while there were fundamentally different parts of me.
After all, I wasn't human.
"To humans, this bird isn't just something rare. I discovered that they use their chirps for a unique form of communication."
It was called Bird Language. It seemed to be a communication method unique to birds, not just the sparrows on this island. Its existence had been known to people since ancient times; fishermen who practiced traditional methods would predict the day's weather based on the cries of sea birds.
However, with the development of modern meteorological and disaster prediction technology, Bird Language was often treated like fortune-telling or superstition. In reality, there was a large discrepancy in accuracy depending on the reader, and it seemed to rely heavily on individual intuition.
Mock said he discovered a certain regularity in the chirps of these strange sparrows. The details were too technical for me to understand, but he said that if research continued, it might be possible to systematize Bird Language.
"At the very least, I found a lead. Perhaps in the future, an era will come where anyone can converse with birds. If we can learn the language of birds like we do foreign languages, a whole new field of society will open up... that's what I felt back then."
The kettle on the stove began to hiss with steam. He stood up and made instant coffee in mugs. He handed me one of the cups and a jar of sugar cubes.
"I became unable to continue my research."
He said it was because of the poachers. When they realized they couldn't catch the birds, they began destroying the environment where the birds lived. It was to trap them and leave them with no place to run. The sparrows, vulnerable to stress, died off. The poachers would take the carcasses and sell them.
Mock, who was just a researcher at the time, could do nothing against criminals who had a foot in the underworld. He said he could only watch as the birds' habitat was destroyed.
"I felt it was my fault. If I hadn't submitted my thesis to the academic society, if I hadn't shown the world that those birds had value, the poachers wouldn't have come."
In the end, it was determined that the strange sparrows had gone extinct due to the poachers' destructive activities. After that, he obtained his Hunter license and traveled the world. He researched many birds and left behind great achievements, but his heart was never satisfied.
"Then ten years ago, I learned of this island's existence. There was a settlement here until a hundred years ago, and several old folk tales remained. Among them was a description that hinted at the bird I was looking for."
Recently, this island has been called 'White Swallow Island,' but it apparently has a different name on the map. The White Swallow is known only in this region as a sacred bird that is rarely seen, and legends say it will fly away if its name is even spoken.
"This is the last paradise left on Earth for those birds. I am continuing my research here, prepared to die on this island. But even after ten years of resuming my study of Bird Language, I am still far from deciphering it..."
He said many in the academic world laughed at his research, calling it a fairy tale. It was a subject so difficult that there was no end in sight. And even if he did manage to decode it after much effort, one wouldn't know if it would actually be useful to society until they reached that point.
But because it was unknown, he sought it. He had no need for pre-determined answers. He could worry about whether his actions were a waste after he finished. Even if what lay ahead was something insignificant, that would be fine.
He was a scholar, but at the same time, he was a Hunter. A Hunter, he said, was a seeker of the unknown.
"Since I'm trying to communicate with something whose species, ecology, and thoughts are all completely different, I knew from the start this wouldn't be easy. Well, it's basically a hobby, so I have no intention of giving up."
'It might just be sour grapes, though,' Mock concluded.
The reason he talked about his circumstances probably wasn't just because he wanted to make small talk. In fact, he gave the impression of a man who was poor with words. Even so, the reason he spoke to the end was likely to show me what kind of person he was.
It's hard for anyone to have a heart-to-heart with someone they've just met. You don't know if you can trust them. That's why he reached out first. Next, it was my turn to act.
To be honest, I wanted to spill everything. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't human, that my will resided in the body of an insect, and about this mysterious girl's body. As a biologist, he might know or understand something about this form.
Above all, I felt that he wouldn't look at me with prejudice. He was a man who seriously considered talking to birds. Maybe he could understand an ant, too. At the very least, he didn't seem like the kind of person who would immediately think of exterminating me.
"...I..."