Revelation
Revelation
Madam Alisha's dinner table was so laden it practically groaned under the weight.
At first, I had naturally assumed it was because the number of kids at the orphanage had grown. But as the dishes multiplied, people began trickling in from outside, and eventually just about everyone with a recognizable face had shown up. They even started hauling tables out past the building.
It was only when I saw Madam Alisha accepting this as if it were the most natural thing in the world that I realized this had been her plan all along. But still, all this food on such short notice? Anyone watching would've mistaken the situation and thought she'd known I was coming three days in advance.
"Balkun?! The alchemist-smith Balkun?! That was made by Balkun?!"
"What the hell? What's wrong with him?"
"I heard that sword Eldmia was wearing was disgustingly fine."
"Huh. I knew he was a wild one, but he's already carrying something like that after how long he's been gone? Impressive."
I couldn't muster the will to calm down Hans, who was freaking out with eyes nearly spinning in their sockets, so I left him be. He was on the verge of licking the damn blade. The fact that Balkun was famous enough to get that kind of reaction was surprising enough, but seeing Hans, who had never acted like this in his entire life, display that kind of crazed response was even more astonishing.
Maybe Mr. Gin was actually a pretty huge deal too? Now that I thought about it, seeing how he'd only recently started adventurer work, it seemed plausible enough. Well, it wasn't as if there were only one or two long-lived people like that.
If I'd had my way, I would've snatched the sword back from Hans that instant just because he was creeping me out. But at the moment, I wasn't in a position to have my attention stolen away by Hans's fussing.
"Big Bro! Did you really jump out of the sky and catch a wyvern, big bro?"
"Is it true that people go flying when you kick them once, big bro?"
"Big Bro! Was the big sis who was here really a princess?"
"Big Bro! What do people from the capital look like?"
These little brats, like budding future adventurers, were bombarding me with questions, eyes shining. Keeping a clear head while answering them was no easy feat.
Good god. What did people from the capital look like? Judging by the fact that I didn't recognize his face, he wasn't from Ogwen either. Did he mean that people from his hometown and people from Ogwen looked fundamentally different somehow?
In the end, unlike that morning when I'd left the orphanage full of bold declarations, I had reached a point of regretting that I'd come back just to mooch a free dinner. Of course, even if I regretted it, the kids weren't about to let me go. After a process of calming them down as best I could, answering them one by one, and giving suitable explanations, I finally, barely managed to get a bite of food in my mouth.
"The stew... got cold...!"
It was stew whose quality had gotten far better than the already decent stuff from back in the day, so honestly it wouldn't have mattered either way. I was about to just eat it when a thick hand snatched up the bowl and swapped it for one with steam still wafting up from it.
"Big Sis..!"
"Quit bitching and eat."
Consistent as ever, honestly.
As I silently thanked her in my heart, watching her take the bowl and head back into the kitchen, I started eating. Asilie, who had been enjoying watching me suffer at the hands of the kids, spoke with a smiling face.
"It's barely been two years, and yet they're all so excessively eager, aren't they."
"No kidding. Anyone watching would think the village chief's son came back with a knighthood."
"But when I think of it as proof that Eldi has been doing well here, it makes me really happy."
That was Asilie for you, finding happiness in ways I couldn't comprehend at all. Still, if she liked it, what could I do? I had no choice but to try to make it so she'd feel that way wherever we went in the future.
"Maybe I like it even more because Alisha told us to stay the night, so we can eat and drink at our leisure."
"Because you can drink freely?"
"That's right."
Come to think of it, Asilie was quite the lover of alcohol. She liked it so much that it made me wonder how on earth she'd kept it almost entirely away from her lips when I was very young.
"But now that I think about it, for how much you like drinking, big sis, you haven't had many chances to really let loose."
"Anyone listening would think I always wanted to live drowning in a wine barrel, honestly. Liking alcohol is just a racial trait."
"Your tribe, big sis? The Blue Vine?"
"Yeah. My tribe was located in the northern region. We mostly lived in the cold, at the foot of the snow mountains."
For reference, there was no such thing as snow mountains in Itisel's northern region. So the north Asilie was talking about meant the north of the continent.
And on a continental scale, Itisel was situated practically at the southernmost tip. Hell, that was disgustingly far away.
"That's completely new information since I've never been curious about your tribe before, big sis. The northern continent? Ravil?"
"We were somewhat close with the people of Ravil. Though, by close, I don't mean our territories overlapped. They lived a bit further up."
"In a place like that... people can actually live?"
Going by what I'd picked up in passing, the northern part of the continent was treated as practically Earth's North Pole. I'd wondered if there'd been a fair amount of exaggeration mixed in, and seeing Asilie laugh out loud, it seemed there certainly had been considerable exaggeration.
"It's to the point where doing all the basic necessities of life poses no problem. Though from the perspective of someone from Itisel, it's the kind of cold that would make you feel like you'll freeze to death."
As I nodded along, listening to the story, I felt a renewed sense of amazement that we hadn't shared this kind of talk until now. Despite having had no small number of conversations over a long time, there was still so much I didn't know.
"I'd like to go there someday."
"Hoho. Yes. Once Eldi achieves his goal, let's definitely go."
It seemed I'd need to spend the foreseeable future talking about this and that, all sorts of things.
◈
The day after the wholly unplanned party had run its course.
Asilie was suffering.
"Urgh..."
"This is my first time seeing you suffer from a hangover, big sis."
She'd kept sipping and sipping, and in the end, she couldn't escape the clutches of the hangover.
"Peo, people kept giving me congratulatory drinks whose meaning I couldn't even properly understand..."
It sounded like an excuse, but astonishingly, it wasn't.
With Hans's fuss, the fact that I'd brought a whole bunch of horses, the news that Ragnis's matter had been settled safely, and finally eyewitness accounts that I'd brought along a bunch of adventurer-like people as if they were my attendants—once all that got mixed together, people genuinely believed I'd become a huge success in the capital and showered us with endless congratulations.
And most of those congratulations were deflected toward Asilie, who had practically raised me. Saying she'd raised me so well. On top of that, Asilie, in a mood so good her lips practically reached her ears, had guzzled down every last one offered to her.
Jumping to conclusions was truly a terrifying thing.
"Though of course, part of the actual problem is with big sis, for happily accepting every single one of those just because she was happy."
"Hurgh...!"
Seeing such an utterly unfamiliar sight, the urge to tease her momentarily bubbled up—something like 'I heard elf vomit was rainbow-colored, is that true?' But I decided to keep my mouth shut, given the track record of a joke yesterday that had nearly wrecked the atmosphere once already.
"Anyway, just rest today. It's nothing serious anyway."
"Ugh... I will."
I left Asilie, who radiated the vibe that she'd throw up if she moved even a little, and departed the orphanage at an hour you could still call dawn.
The streets hadn't even properly cleared of the morning fog yet, and visibility was poor enough that I decided to leave the horse behind. I could just find my way on foot as my body was accustomed to, but in conditions like this, I figured it was plenty likely someone walking around defenselessly could get run over by a horse.
"...Huh."
A shiver ran through me. Not a shiver of fear or terror, but the kind of shiver that came from a feeling of pleasantness. It didn't take me long to clearly realize what I was feeling, and at the same time, I couldn't help being quite surprised.
Walking the morning streets of Ogwen, I had been drunk on the sentimentality of returning home after a long time.
For nearly five years I'd gone back and forth between the hut and Ogwen, and I had never thought I'd grown this attached to the city itself. To me, up until I'd come here, home had been the hut in the forest where I lived with Asilie, and the village that was nothing but rubble.
I liked people, but only up to a point. That's what I thought... but in reality, it was nothing of the sort.
"I guess there are things that escape your notice when you're too focused."
The advice Esmue had given me in the Empire came back to me with fresh meaning. I had thought, in my own way, I was making autonomous judgments and separating what to hold onto from what to throw away. But apparently, that wasn't quite the case.
It wasn't a bad realization. Because now I knew what I mustn't lose.
I hurried my steps, which had slowed in sentimentality, and headed for the Holy Light Cross Order so as not to be late for the appointed time. On the way, I exchanged greetings here and there with people I'd shared the chaotic dinner with the night before, and before I knew it, I had arrived.
And the moment I appeared, a figure like a monolith guarding the temple front slowly opened his tightly shut mouth.
"It has been a long time, Eldmia."
"...You weren't waiting out here for me, were you, Priest Ashel?"
"You have always been precise with your appointment times."
My height. Shoulders and bulk seemingly one and a half times wider than mine. An angular and solemn face that looked ready to shout 'You blasphemer!!!' at any moment.
Ashel, the combat priest of the Holy Light Cross Order, displayed a benevolent smile that didn't quite match that intimidating appearance.
"Come in. I am greatly indebted to you this time."
"Why do you assume it was me? It was adventurers who saved Bellesica."
"You clumsy fool. What good is it if you only silence the adventurers?"
"...Ah!"
Goddammit! I hadn't said a single word to Bellesica and Seunowal!