Chapter 3.
The elders were surprised by Doomstone"s words.
"When Den was 12, I went to a nearby dragon den and threw him into it."
Elder Mirpa frowned and said, "You mean that evil hobby of yours?"
The other elders were also well aware that Doomstone made his sons overcome their fear of monsters by tossing them before monsters, demons, and dragons at the ages of five, eight, and twelve respectively.
Since Doomstone was watching from the shadows, his sons were never in any real danger. In addition, he would be able to gain the dignity of a patriarch if he were to kill the monsters in an emergency. Therefore, he considered it as an education method that killed two birds with one stone
"What do you mean, evil hobby? It’s just my teaching method. Anyway, when he was 12, I threw Den in front of a dragon. He started running around at first, but then later, he started going back and forth with magic until he eventually cut the dragon’s throat with a knife.”
All along Elder Mirpa had been frowning, but at those words, his eyes opened wide in surprise.
Doomstone was surprised by Elder Mirpa"s reaction. ‘I thought this old man Mirpa would know since he’s close to Den.’
"Chief, is this true?" the other elders were surprised as well and asked Doomstone.
"Yes. He caught a dragon which even adults struggle with."
"Was it a baby dragon?"
"How could defeating a baby dragon be educational? It was a fully grown dragon."
"How old was it?"
"It seemed to be a little over 300 years old."
"So you are saying that the dragon back then was caught by the kid and not you?!"
"Yes."
The elders discussed Denburg"s current age amongst themselves and also talked about the future.
"Ahem, okay. You are saying that the kid caught a dragon and didn’t mention a single word to me?" Elder Mirpa muttered while being dissatisfied.
"When do you intend on pa.s.sing the t.i.tle to the child?"
The buzzing room became quiet upon Mirpa"s question.
"When he becomes moderately stronger than me or when I start to lose strength."
"Since there is no chance of you ever losing strength, it means that he will have to become stronger than you. That will be at least 20 years hence, so why are you already talking about this?"
Doomstone scratched his head and laughed. "Hahaha, I ended up revealing it to my children, so I wanted to let you know a little bit earlier."
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d! With my current age, I’ll be lying in a coffin after 20 years!"
"So are you not going to attend the festival?"
A grand festival was held on the day a new village head was appointed. Due to this, the coronation came to be known as the festival.
"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What do you mean I’m not going to attend the festival? You know how much I love to drink!"
The other elders laughed at Elder Mirpa’s outburst.
Knock, knock!
Along with the knock came Hestia’s voice.
"Father, it"s almost time for Denburg’s coming of age ceremony."
Doomstone looked at the clock and got up from his seat.
"Oh, it"s already time for my son"s coming-of-age ceremony. If you"ll excuse me.”
"No, I"ll go along as well. I also want to take a look at the next chief of the village."
When one of the elders started rising from his seat, the other elders joined him.
Doomstone scratched his head and said, "Okay. Well sure."
Although it was called a coming of age ceremony, it was at most a gathering of family and friends where they would dole out advice on responsibility and such. After that, all they had to do was go hunt for monsters to prove their adulthood, and then they would all eat together. Usually, there was no need to go too far out of the village since people would gather in front of the village hall and report before the event.
In front of the town hall stood the eldest son Gallahad, the second oldest son Gawain, the eldest daughter Hestia as well as the younger daughter Leisha.
"Where is Denburg?"
When Doomstone asked Leisha, she shrugged and said she didn"t know.
It felt a little strange. Denburg was unusually diligent. When he made a promise or had something to do, he would be the first to come out and wait. Moreover, he was very smart and would have already antic.i.p.ated Doomstone rallying up the elders and bringing them along. Also, Hestia would have reminded Denburg should he have somehow missed that fact, so he should have known better than to be late.
It was very strange that Denburg was not here already. But thinking back to the screws missing inside him somewhere, perhaps it wasn’t as strange after all.
Doomstone apologized to the elders and then looked at his watch. He had been waiting for noon, that was when the coming of age ceremony was arranged to start. But Denburg was nowhere to be seen even after the appointed time.
Sensing something fishy, one by one, Doomstone looked at his children. But they all shook their heads indicating they were oblivious as well.
"Father." Perhaps feeling a bit strange, Hestia called out to her father.
When she saw Doomstone nod, she nodded back and ran towards the house.
"Oh sister, where are you going?" Leisha called out to Hestia, but the latter had quickly disappeared.
Not long after, Hestia came back running while hauling the corpse of a demon twice her size with one hand.
"Father! Look at this!"
Hestia, in a rarely heard loud voice, handed Doomstone a piece of paper folded in half with an urgent look on her face.
On the folded paper, in a neat handwriting, was written- ‘To my beloved family’.
It was easy to see that this was Denburg"s handwriting.
To my beloved family,
I suspect that it will be Hestia who first discovers this letter after sensing something amiss. It will probably be just a few minutes past noon now.
Although I hope that this letter will be found later, in nine out of ten cases, the letter will be discovered at the aforementioned time. It will be impossible for the letter or the demon corpse to be discovered before that time since the magic I cast wouldn’t have been lifted yet.
To answer Hestia who will be wondering why I let the demon corpse and the letter be discovered at noon, I hope she’ll understand if I tell her, "I wanted to narrow down the range of possibilities since it will be discovered that I ran away anyways."
Now, to be blunt and forthright, I"m planning on leaving this village and going to a new place. As you read this letter, you might be wondering why a man with a future as the head of the village is leaving (I"m an adult now, so I"m going to describe it as leaving and not running away from home).
But to be honest, I don"t really have any desire to be the head of the village. If Father hadn"t told me he was planning on making me be the head of the village, I wouldn"t have left without a word. Oh, that doesn"t mean I didn"t have any plans of leaving the village.
Father, I don"t want you to have any regrets or blame yourself for what happened.
Aside from wanting to do something meaningful, it seems that the biggest reason I left is that I have a great desire to see the world. I"ll contact you regularly, at least once a month, so please don"t worry too much.
P.S.1: The demon corpse that came along with the letter is my hunt for the coming of age ceremony. Don’t treat me like a child and tell me later that I didn’t perform the coming of age ceremony.
P.S.2: As a gift for leaving the village, I hunted down the entire herd of demons. There are about 40 of them, so follow the map I drew and retrieve them to contribute to the village"s supply.
P.S.3: I"ll take some maps, food, and imperial money from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Well, even so, these will only be worth two or three tooth of the demons I caught.
P.S.4. Come to think of it, I wrote this letter as if writing to my oldest sister, so it’s written informally. When Father reads it, please read it while subst.i.tuting it with honorifics.
Always hoping for happiness among the family.
- Written by the beloved youngest son.
Doomstone suddenly felt his blood pressure beginning to rise.
“Hahaha, to think that my youngest son prepared such a surprise event!”
"Captain of the guards!"
At Doomstone"s call, Gallahad answered with a nervous look, "Yes!"
"Except for the minimum manpower required for village security, go catch Denburg BLADE!"
Doomstone ordered as he yelled out his youngest son’s name.
Gallahad, however, was a little reluctant. "Father? Still, investing that kind of manpower is —”
"Why? Do you want to be the next chief? Do you want to spend your life inside that troublesome pile of doc.u.ments?"
"Yes, Sir! Excluding 300 guards required for security, I"ll lead 1,200 people and bring him back!"
Gallahad made a rarely performed salute and quickly took to his heels.
Do you really not want to live inside that pile of doc.u.ments that much?
"General of the warrior force."
"Yes, Sir."
"How many men do we need to butcher 40 of these demons?"
Gawain, while looking at the demon left by Denburg, considered for a moment before answering. "A hundred and twenty people, no, a hundred is enough."
Butchering monsters was quite a difficult task. In fact, the figure of a hundred and twenty mentioned earlier was already considered low taking into account only three people were being a.s.signed to each monster. But Gawain had further reduced the number as if he understood Doomstone"s current feelings.
Although Doomstone felt grateful, he couldn"t make the warriors suffer because his son had fled away as the head of the village.
"a.s.sign two hundred men to butchering and send the rest to catch Denburg."
Thanks to Gawain"s consideration, Doomstone felt a little bit of reasoning return to his head.
"Yes. I"ll lead three hundred warriors and return."
Gawain saluted and ran in the direction of the warrior force.
"Foreign Minister, no, since he is not here, Leisha. Go explain the situation to the minister and have him send a guide for the pursuit. "
"Yes, Father. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who can counter Denburg’s magic, so I’ll go as well."
Doomstone thanked Leisha and sent her on her way. He then turned towards the gathered elders and said, "Ahem, I apologize for the embarra.s.sment."
At Doomstone"s heartfelt apology, the elders waved their hands and said it was okay.
"No, I should say that this is exactly what I expected from your son."
"You caused incidents of this magnitude yourself when you were a child."
"That"s right, that"s right. It was worse when you were a kid."
"I"d rather say that up until now, they haven"t acted like your sons at all."
Every word spoken by the elders stabbed Doomstone in the chest.
Come to think of it, didn"t he also cause a lot of accidents when he was young because he didn"t want to become the chief?
Due to his past history, everyone agreed that the incident Denburg caused wasn’t an incident at all.
Doomstone began to wonder whether he should be rejoicing or lamenting.