Each One's Circumstances
Each One's Circumstances
It took barely thirty minutes to finalize the schedule for meeting Duke Lesrom and wrap up the light chatter.
Still, the conversation we had during that time cleared up some of my questions. I had been curious why they were so actively protecting me even after my recent rampages and mess-making, but in the end, it came close to a tangle of justifications and matters of prestige.
The gist was that the man who lopped off a traitor's head getting dragged into public scandal over squabbling with mere adventurers would also damage the royal family's prestige. Had it been after the whole thing had already faded from people's memories, maybe not, but since it was a hot issue right now, they acted fast.
Ruserik, who had been watching with interest as Laika woke from sleep, whined, and came down the stairs to approach my side, concluded the conversation and stood up as he emptied his teacup.
"Then I shall see you at the Noble Council in three days."
His opinion was that handing me a medal the moment I walked out of the detention center would look odd, so it was better to leave a reasonable gap, and I accepted without much comment. Since this wasn't a problem I couldn't have resolved without their help anyway, it felt less like a gesture of thanks and more like just wanting to wrap up an annoying matter quickly.
And so, on the morning of a day that passed without incident after that conversation with Ruserik, I was able to leave the detention center just as he'd said. Meshiella seemed quite flustered by the departure, which was no different from a traveler ending a short stay.
"I've been in your care again, Meshiella. Take care."
I had no problem at all returning home, leaving behind Meshiella, who had a look on her face like she couldn't decide what farewell to give but finally smiled. However, the story was different with Asilie, who was thoroughly miffed.
Even for someone who already understood how I operated, worry was a separate matter. I had to make a concerted effort to emphasize that this incident truly was no big deal and only looked blown up because of the royal family's face.
"...Haah, sometimes I get confused whether I've lived a hundred years or Eldi has lived a hundred years."
By the time her lips, stuck out in discontent, drew back in and her ears, standing rigidly upright, settled down, Asilie shook her head and muttered, and I gave a suitable smile.
Just as a human can't fully understand a dog's sense of time even knowing their average lifespan is only about twenty years, from the perspective of a long-lived species like her, the thoughts and society of short-lived humans always felt urgent and frantic, she said. I couldn't perfectly understand her perception either, but ultimately, the emotion of worrying about a person was the same regardless of race, so it's not that I couldn't empathize at all.
"You'll handle things well enough on your own, but Widra will be done with preparations soon, so be a bit careful out there."
"It's Eldmia we're talking about, the one who keeps public and private strictly separate. I'll be careful, so don't worry too much."
With a brilliant resume including being an outstanding butler for the Ogatorf family and an excellent attendant for Margrave of Levien, how could my reliability be so lacking?
"...Hmm."
Looking back, it was all karma.
There wasn't a shred of lie in my words about keeping public and private strictly separate, but that wasn't synonymous with saying it caused no problems. After reassuring Asilie by insisting that I was planning to focus solely on studying for a while anyway using this opportunity, I settled down by the warm stove with stacks of documents to go through information from the Holy Light Cross Order that I'd only been piling up with no time to examine.
Even after carefully culling and reculling the releasable reports and information, the documents were by no means few. Couldn't you burn just those things as firewood and stay warm for a couple of days?
"But man, seven years is no joke."
To think I'd stacked them up and hadn't even read them properly. I sat there newly realizing how busy I'd been lately with all sorts of things as I worked towards independence, and I began checking the older records one by one.
The contents written in the documents weren't exactly classified, but they were generally hard to come by or unobtainable information. Among the document pile consisting of the Holy Light Cross Order's combat records, external activity records, Demon King's Army investigation reports, and so on, what stood out the most were the minor combat reports against the Demonfolk encountered by the Order's holy knights and holy warriors during their continued civilian relief efforts.
- Skirmish between self-proclaimed purple-rank adventurers and a Demon King's Army scout unit. Ended with minor damage thanks to a swift join-up.
- Red-rank adventurer's body confirmed. No trace of comrades. Presumed to have encountered Demon King's Army during solo scouting activity. One demon army corpse found nearby.
- Red Jackdaw Mercenary Corps raided a village occupied by the Demon King's Army, inflicting effective damage. Losses were minor...
The Demon King's Army ran on the logic of power.
I don't mean the simple, brutish logic that they fight a one-on-one duel and whoever wins becomes captain. I mean combat ability was rated extremely highly and treated as critically important. Ah, though apparently there were cases where they really did settle it with a one-on-one duel and take the captaincy. Anyway, in a place like that, a Demonfolk joining the 'army' meant willingly crawling into the bottom of that pyramid of violence, and it also meant being confident in their own skill. Some might have had no choice but to enlist just to survive, but that was the general perception.
Naturally, even a single common soldier who just joined the army like that was stronger than a human. Just because their species was different, exactly as the term implied.
Not to mention ones who'd piled up seven years of war experience on top of that. The 'norm' was that an ordinary red-rank wouldn't even leave a scratch on them even ready to die... but the Holy Light Cross Order's reports held many completely different accounts.
- A blue-rank adventurer party hired as messengers discovered a Demon King's Army intelligence unit. Repelled them. Provided useful information, additional payment delivered.
- The medical station was protected through the sacrifice of a red-rank adventurer hired for relief work. Killed three members of a Demon King's Army detached force who attempted a fire attack under cover of night raid...
Moreover, reaching the latest documents, cases of even blue-rank adventurers leaving behind achievements against the Demon King's Army were not uncommonly recorded. Scanning through cases rarely seen in reports written early in the war, I couldn't help but grow increasingly certain.
"...They're getting stronger."
While the change had not happened overnight, both the humans who continued fighting on the front lines and the Demonfolk were growing stronger for some reason. It was strength far beyond anything that could be explained by simply growing accustomed to war and battle.
No matter how much they were holding out through humanity's specialty, the sheer volume of numbers, people don't grow like bamboo, and if an astronomical number of able-bodied men had been dying off for seven years, there was no way the country would be running fine. Even taking Earth's World War II as an example, wasn't unspeakable damage inflicted over roughly six years?
But the humans here were living perfectly fine even now. People far from the battlefield were living normally, continuing their lives barely feeling the effects. Of course, the shortage of capable personnel was keenly felt, but the fact that it was maintained up to this point without forced conscription or nationwide propaganda appealing to patriotism for additional recruitment was proof that many of those who went to the front lines survived without dying and were fulfilling their roles.
Thanks to that, a question I'd been trying hard not to pay attention to slyly raised its head for the first time in a while.
The Demon King and the Hero. The repeating history. A legend or a dramatic script-like ending where the war ends simply by the Hero defeating the Demon King and the Demonfolk withdraw.
"What the hell were they thinking, making the world into this mess...?"
Because I came from a completely different world. Because I came here having read a fictional novel made there, having seen similar clichés. Because I ultimately ended up in the position of living inside that novel's world—a question I'd always carried with me through the decade or so of time.
At the same time, it was a question to which the only answer that came back to 'Why?' was 'It just is that way.'
[Master! Hungry!]
Laika, who had climbed onto my lap and was panting, pulled me out of the thoughts I'd been lost in. Seeing that stubby little tail wagging ceaselessly—the old sheepdog form recreated exactly—made me smile without thinking.
"Now that I think about it, I didn't take care of you after putting you to work this time."
I stroked Laika's jaw while letting Magic Power flow in, and Laika's mouth curled upward in satisfaction. Listening to that reaction, the warmth of the fireplace, and each little sound Asilie made while preparing the meal, a question I hadn't been able to settle until now somehow reached its conclusion.
After stroking Laika several times as that large, medium-to-large-dog body curled diligently into a ball and settled onto my lap, I threw the documents I was holding into the fireplace.
There was no problem since I'd promised from the start to destroy them once fully read. They weren't some priceless secret manual or content needing repeated study, so there was no reason to keep them anyway. Thus, the documents whose content I'd finished grasping or which had fulfilled their purpose of resolving my questions disappeared in order into the flames crackling in the fireplace. Alongside that, I burned away the question I'd held until now and steeled my resolve.
I didn't care in the slightest whether higher intelligences calling themselves gods were rolling dice for a moment's entertainment, whether there was a noble purpose to sustain the world, or whether this was simply how the world was meant to run from the start.
Since I'd already died once and been reborn, in the end, I was a resident of this world. And since I wasn't born a god tasked with tearing all this apart and fixing it, I just had to live faithfully to the life I'd been given.
I had no intention of wasting my second life agonizing over what reasons the gods had for making the world like this. That hero Siegfried could figure that out on his own.
"I protect myself, and I protect those around me."
That was enough for now.
Perhaps because I'd resolved one worry I'd held for a long time, the flames in the fireplace felt especially cozy today.