Yuusha-sama no Oshishou-sama

Locke must have been really exhausted.

Dropping onto his bed after returning to his dorm, he slipped under the covers, and instantly let go of his consciousness.
If Locke had noticed, he would have realized that it was the time Wynn normally woke up.
The sky outside the window was still dark, but the whole sky was filled with stars.

There would also be fine weather today.

Setting his eyes on the neighboring bed, Locke also fell asleep in the very clothes he wore to the banquet.
How many months worth of Wynn’s wages did the suit cost?
No, rather, it might be on the scale of years.
The Marine House possessed that much wealth.
Though he was not the successor, he couldn’t present himself to the Emperor in shabby clothing.

Did it get creased?

Only having taken off his coat[?1?], Locke lay fast asleep.[?2?]
Wynn let out a small sigh.
Then, his eyes moved down to his own garments, and he frowned.

“… Whoa, I accidentally did it,” he murmured.
He had slept in his school uniform.
It was natural, since he had no recollection of changing his clothes.

He didn’t straighten them out afterwards.[?3?]

First, he took of his clothes and changed to his normal clothes.
Then, he took his practice sword, stepped silently so as to not wake Locke up, opened the door to the room, and stepped into the empty hallway.
After he went outside, he washed his face in the communal fountain.
All of the drowsiness left him when he felt the stinging cold water and the brisk dawn atmosphere.
As he used the towel around his neck to wipe his face, his stiff joints slowly relaxed.

“Okay, let’s go!”

Since there was the banquet yesterday, he wasn’t able to go training.
That’s why he would put even more effort today.
As always, he greeted the sentries who guarded the school entrance though the night.
He ran down the dim and yet empty main street.
His destination was Wandering Bird’s Mistletoe Pavilion.[1]
It was far enough from the knight school to be a good warm-up.
With light steps, Wynn slowly — it would be quite fast to anybody who watched— began running.

Once he filled the barrel at the back of the Wandering Bird’s Mistletoe Pavilion to the brim with water, he began washing the vegetables.
Potatoes, carrots, daikons[2], he washed them all thoroughly, while thinking back to the food he ate at the banquet.

Soft, freshly-baked bread.
White fish soup with a rich flavor.[3]
A salad with fresh vegetables and thinly sliced ham.
Tender beef that melted in the mouth.
Magically refrigerated rose water, and freshly squeezed fruit juice.

He would probably never taste it again.

Though he had eaten, just by thinking about it, his mouth watered, and he felt hungry.[4]
After he washed the vegetables while enduring it, he proceeded to deftly wipe the tables and sweep the floor.
At that time, the boss, Randell, and his wife, Hannah, also woke up.

Wynn had permission from them to enter and leave through the back door.
He grabbed the sword leaning against the wall.
He took a deep breath, then exhaled.

He held an image inside his head.

First, he swung the sword once.
He started slowly, then gradually got faster.

During the coup d’état incident, Wynn had killed a person for the first time.[5]
While magic power was sealed, alone against many opponents Aldo, the senior knights, the soldiers, all swung swords, brandished spears, or shot arrows. He could see the trajectories of the weapons.
He could see the trajectories of his opponent’s blades during the practice matches, but against more advanced opponents, he couldn’t receive the blows, and was blown away many times.
However, while their magic power was mutually sealed, he was able to perceive the attacks, and evade or block them.

‘I became strong.’

He felt that for the first time.
Now, he imagined Leticia’s blade.
He was able to perceive her intense intimidation and the path of her blade.
Her slashes were faster and more pointed than the knights when he crossed swords with her.
He imagined Leticia’s strikes gradually get faster, until he couldn’t match her anymore.

“Kuh…”

He somehow avoided the last blow aimed at the head, but it destroyed his stance, and he fell to the ground.[6]

‘Strong, huh…’

Leticia was strong, more than he could imagine.
Compared to four years ago, just from the one match they had when they met again, he could tell that she was much stronger.
For one, while he could try to see the path of the blade, there was no time to react to it.
Moreover, when they met again. Leticia hadn’t been serious.
At the moment they crossed swords, Wynn knew he would lose.
Unable to brace his legs, he was blown away.
Otherwise, he would have been cut by the blade.
From the stories of those who saw the duel between the Hero Zaunas, and Leticia, the difference in strength was as big the difference between an adult and a child.

He lay on the ground.

The cool ground felt good to his drenched, burning body.
The sky was beginning to brighten, and birds began to chirp as they flew through the air.

Wynn lay face-up on the ground, watching the sky brighten up.
Not only Leticia, but if he also planned to beat other opponents using magic strengthening, he couldn’t just kill without crossing swords.
However, at that time, he reached the point that he was able to follow her sword.
Leticia stood at a distant, high place far, far away, but Wynn still felt happy that she had become strong.

“Okay, preparations complete!”[7]

The second son of the Wandering Bird’s Mistletoe, Abel, inspected the parcel that he had bought yesterday, and picked up a brand new one-handed sword.
He slowly drew it from its scabbard, and stared motionlessly at the shimmering blade, which had never been used.

Yesterday, he was invited to an adventurer’s party for the first time.

Though he was. .h.i.t by his father Randell, he often visited the Adventurer Guild to take simple requests such as collecting wild herbs, chasing away wild animals and monsters which damaged the fields, and other manual labour.
Recognizing his accomplishments, a senior adventurer that he was close with invited him to their party since they had a vacancy.
Their task was to subjugate a bandit group attacking villages near the border.
It was a mission taken in conjunction with other parties.

He couldn’t stop grinning.

“Kukuku…. Fu, fufufu, Ahahahaha!”[8]

He couldn’t hold it back, and ended up laughing out loud.

He felt elated.

Up until then, he had received only menial requests, but this time, he was going to be a member of another party.
Joining a party was a rite of pa.s.sage for adventurers.

Abel had taken the first step in fulfilling his dream of becoming an adventurer.

He returned the sword to its sheath, and donned brand-new leather armour.
He gagged a bit at the characteristic odor of leather, but held it in.
He was to meet with his comrades exactly at noon.

“Ah, My body is trembling a lot!”

Unable to just stand still, he left his room, and moved to the back of the building.

“Hmm?”

He recognized the boy laying face-up on the ground.

Hey, that’s Wynn isn’t it!

To Abel, he was more than just an employee of the restaurant.

“Oh? Abel? What is it? You look happy.”

Abel puffed out his chest, as Wynn stayed on the ground, merely turning his head towards him.

“I became an adventurer!”

“Adventurer!? You did?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Today at noon, I will be going with a party to complete a request.”

“Good, so Randell-san let you.”

Wynn raised just his upper body, and thought of Randell, Abel’s father, and the proprietor of the inn.
When he ran away from work, saying “I want to become an adventurer,” Randell’s fist fell onto his head.
Since the older brother Mark was a better successor to the inn, Randell was unable to hide his irritation at the younger brother Abel’s earnest aspiration, but he may have changed his mind.[9]

“The old man[10] has nothing to do with this! I will become an adventurer with my own power!”

“Eh? So Randell-san doesn’t know about it?”

Abel’s expression instantly hardened.

“I am joining the party and becoming an adventurer. I’m not following that old man’s orders anymore. Unlike a knight cadet like you, I am now an independent adult.”

To Abel, since Wynn was close in age to him, he was an existence that couldn’t be ignored.
While Abel played around his brother Mark, Wynn only mutely[11] worked as an employee of the inn.
Mark and Abel ordered Wynn, who lived in a small shed behind the inn, around for the smallest things, treating him like a servant.
That was until a single girl started following him around one day.
Abel was conscious of the girl named Leti, who was prettier than other girls, and his heart leapt at a glimpse of her.

It was love at first sight.

Though they played together, Leti never left Wynn’s side and stuck to him.
He got angry at Wynn, and pushed various ch.o.r.es onto him, but even then, Wynn wordlessly, without complaint, did the work.
Soon, Abel realized that Wynn had a different worldview than the others.

He wanted to become a knight.

That the dream that Wynn, who swung his wooden stick, had.
At first, Abel thought that he was foolish.
What was this servant-like commoner orphan saying?
His father Randell more or less understood Wynn’s dreams, but his mother Hannah thought that if he had the time and energy to swing a stick around, he should use it for work.
Even then, Wynn never gave up.
If there is no time for it during work, then he just had to wake up earlier.
He took his time when drawing water, holding buckets in both hands to decrease the number of round trips he had to make.
Abel woke up every morning to see Wynn, finished with drawing water and even peeling the vegetables, wholeheartedly swinging the stick.
Moreover, understanding that he didn’t have enough money to pay the enrollment fee for the knight school, and ended up going to the adventurer guild in his free time.
Since adventurers fulfilled requests day and night, the guild was also open all day.
That day, Abel heart that Wynn took a job from the adventurer guild, and secretly took a peek.
He saw a boy younger than him taking up a request with adult adventurers.
Unlike Abel, who was treated like a child, seeing Wynn be treated like a mature grown-up was dazzling.
Until then, Abel had not thought about his future.
His elder brother would succeed the inn.
He would work under a merchant house, and eventually marry and run an independent household.
That was what he thought he would do.
However, Abel admired Wynn, who worked with grown-up adventurers.

‘I will become an adventurer.’

He couldn’t accept that despite having the status of a servant, Wynn was treated as an equal by adventurers older than himself.
That was why he saw becoming an adventurer as a triumph.

“With the attempted coup, the empire’s knights have a bright future ahead of them, don’t they? Because of that, the knight school is temporarily closed isn’t it? When are you ever going to become a knight?”

“Hmm, when will I become a knight, huh?”

Wynn muttered with an unusually weak tone.
The knight school was closed while knights who sympathised with the princ.i.p.al, Zaunas, awaited punishment.
Many of the instructors were included.
On one side, some were suggesting increasing the limit on the number successful applicants since the number of knights had dropped, while others suggested that commoners should not be promoted as knights since most of the insurgents were commoners.
If they decided to prevent commoners from becoming knights, Wynn’s dream would end there.
Unlike Wynn, who was despondently thinking about how he may not achieve his dream, Abel happily drew his newly bought sword.

“How is it! See it? Behold this sword! Even though it looks like this, it can cut three demonic beasts you know?”

He wore a proud expression on his face.
Wynn was lost in thought, merely gazing at at Abel as he swung his sword around.

“That’s right! You have a practice sword right? Let’s have a match!”

Saying this, he suddenly pointed the sword at Wynn.

“Is it fine? What about injuries?”

“It is not a duel.[?4?] Do you not have practice opponents since the school closed down? I’ll practice with you. Let’s go.[?5?]”

“I’m not interested.”

“Wouldn’t it be bad for a grown-up adventurer to go all out and beat a knight cadet student? I’ll make the blows light.”

“If you’re going that far, then…”

Finally, Wynn slowly reached for his sword, and Abel chuckled.
He would beat Wynn with the swordplay of a full-fledged adventurer.
He had decided that he was superior to servants like Wynn.[12]

“Okay, let’s go!”

Though he said that it wasn’t a duel, he had swung the sword, intending to injure him.
However,

“Onii-chan?”

He suddenly heard a dearly missed voice.
It was Abel’s first love, now grown up, and sporting a smile.[13]

Translator notes