Only Then Did I Feel Relieved
Only Then Did I Feel Relieved
Time always passed fucking fast when I was busting my ass at something. When I was busting my ass because it was my life's goal, it passed really fucking, fucking fast.
So I guess that's why it flew by. Three years had already passed since I'd started living with Asilie.
If my military service had gone even half as fast as this, it would've gone so fast I wouldn't even have needed leave. And thanks to those years, I could confidently say this.
Asilie was truly a lifeline sent down by God himself. Gods definitely lived and breathed in this other world.
Her abilities as an adventurer were irrelevant. As an elf, she was an excellent hunter, a woman overflowing with practical life skills, and a perfect teacher. By this point, Asilie was so perfect that even the bandits from that day felt like agents of God.
If nobles truly wanted to educate their children, they should hire elf tutors.
"That's a strange idea. An elf tutor? More importantly, have you ever even seen a noble who had a private tutor?"
"Eldmia chance!"
"That again..."
Eldmia chance!
It was nothing special. Just a signal meaning 'don't ask.' Eight years was a long time, and it was a stretch of time where you couldn't ignore the affection that formed, but that was for later. Although over the past three years, every single action of hers had benefited me, and no matter how much she was my solid support and lifeline, the truth was that as someone who remembered a past life, there were things I couldn't open up about.
But Asilie just smiled without any visible complaint and stroked my hair. In her shimmering platinum blonde hair and lustrous skin, not a single trace remained of the time when I'd first met her. In fact, those traces had already started disappearing within a week of us being together.
When I asked, she said that being in the forest boosted recovery in various ways. I couldn't help but marvel at such a truly otherworldly racial trait.
'Do humans not have anything like that?'
'Humans... uh, they don't.'
Watching Asilie blush as she said that, I became certain.
'So there really isn't anything useful.'
If the first thing that elf thought of as a racial trait was only related to nighttime activities that would make her blush, well, that said it all. Thanks to that, I had a memory of being pointlessly depressed for a while.
But even if the human race wasn't special, the human Eldmia Ega was special!
I wasn't joking. It was true. I had a body that could use raw Magic Power directly, after all.
Asilie was vehemently against it, so I couldn't use it openly. But comparing raw Magic Power with the refinement method she'd taught me only made the difference even clearer.
But the reason why was still unknown. It didn't seem unrelated to my reincarnation, but in the end, it appeared to be a realm beyond the knowledge of a single newborn human and a single elf who had lived a century.
For reasons I still didn't understand, I could strengthen my body but couldn't cast magic with raw Magic Power. If I refined it the way Asilie had taught me, I could use magic normally. I wanted to know why raw Magic Power itself wouldn't work for spells, but I couldn't bring myself to ask.
Asilie would no doubt lecture me for ages just for attempting such a thing. In the old days, who knows, but now a tidal wave of unrestrained lecturing would come crashing down.
"Come to think of it, the village was buzzing with news that a Hero had been chosen by the Imperial Divine Council."
Just as soon as we got home, Asilie told me the gossip she'd picked up while organizing the things she'd bought. I was cleaning the soot from the fireplace when the content made me suddenly look back at Asilie in surprise.
"Wow. So Heroes really do exist."
"Right? I'd only ever heard about them from my parents. I never thought I'd actually see one get chosen."
Asilie and I had truly come to live like family.
Even the way of speaking I'd thought was natural from the start had actually been an awkward formality—that was a refreshing discovery. Thanks to that, I now teased her by mimicking that old formal tone.
"Here, try them on."
Letting down her platinum blonde hair from its ponytail, Asilie showed me what she'd taken out with a bright smile—it was clearly men's pants and a coat. Seeing new clothes for the first time in a while, a smile involuntarily spread across my face.
"What's this, Sis? I could still wear the old ones. You didn't have to buy all this."
"My little brother grows practically every day. If you've already patched those clothes three times, you've gotten plenty of use out of them. We can turn them into rags later, so stop pinching pennies and try these on."
Grinning ear to ear, I wiped my dirty hands, took the pants, changed into them, and turned around—Asilie gave a satisfied smile.
"See. I knew they'd fit perfectly. Now don't grow any taller for a while."
"That's not happening. I need to get taller. I'm going to reach at least 180 centimeters."
"What, are you trying to become a giant?"
"A big frame solves most petty problems simply. You've got to grow while you can."
Now 11 years old, my height approached nearly 160 centimeters. I had shot up nearly 40 centimeters in three years. Thanks to a height that literally grew by the day, I now stood only about 5 centimeters short of matching Asilie, who I'd once had to crane my neck far back just to look at. At this rate, I'd easily pass 170 by age 14.
"Seriously, with the way you talk and your build, who would even take you for 11 now?"
As I looked at Asilie, who wore a mischievous smile as she ruffled my hair, I grinned back.
"You don't look 120 either, Sis, so you don't need to worry about it."
When I teased her by mimicking her old way of speaking, she immediately pinched my side, making me yelp.
"You're making fun of the big sister who went out of her way for her little brother?"
"Agh! That hurts! Sorry! Help!"
Since that attack didn't end with just one pinch, I had to really scramble around dodging her. Only after I'd been pinched to the point where I genuinely wondered if my sides were bruised did Asilie finally look satisfied and gesture outside.
"Come on. While I'm thinking about it, let's cut your hair today."
"Oh. Yeah, it was getting annoying anyway."
I tucked my worn-out robe and a silver tray under one arm, grabbed a chair, and followed Asilie outside.
Asilie's hair salon used a spirit as its cutting tool. The idea of cutting hair using a wind spirit—a concept I could never have imagined—was beyond a culture shock; it was terror itself.
That first haircut, led by Asilie who'd firmly declared that in all of elven history, no one had ever cut a throat while cutting hair, had now become a pleasant memory. I suddenly remembered it and mentioned it to Asilie, who was neatly trimming my hair up from the back and sides.
"Well, actually, there was an elf who got his ear sliced off. A historic elf who left behind the lesson of not messing around during a haircut."
I ended up trembling in deep betrayal and fear as I waited for the trimming to finish.
The spirit's movements, which had once felt like a gentle touch, now felt like a madman's blade dance!
"Liar. Liar! Sis is a lying elf mage!"
"What are you talking about. There really isn't a case of a throat being cut. I never said there wasn't a case of an ear being sliced off. Here, how is it?"
Chewing over my deepening sense of betrayal at Asilie's smile as she held up the silver tray I'd brought out as a mirror for me to check, I examined my reflection. Truthfully, Asilie's skill was so excellent there was no need to check.
In the silver tray, a handsome boy with short-cropped black hair and a slightly longer top trembled with a sense of betrayal.
"I see a handsome pretty boy trembling after being betrayed by family he trusted."
"Honestly, you're not a pretty boy."
"Hey, you can't judge me by elf standards, Sis. By human standards, I'm pretty handsome, aren't I?"
"Even you're ending that argument with a question mark. What could I possibly add?"
Asilie swiftly moved the spirit to dust off the hair, picked up the silver tray and robe and tidied up the area, while I grumbled and grabbed the chair.
Honestly, I was handsome, even if my features were a little sharp.
"Well, still, your features are much finer than the humans in the village."
Asilie said with a faint smile as she headed inside the house.
"Right? See, I'm not just talking bullshit by myself."
Asilie really was the best!
"Ah. Come to think of it, didn't you have a brawl with those kids the last time you went down to the village?"
I'd been grinning happily and then got genuinely startled.
"Wh-what? That happened ages ago. How is it only reaching your ears now, Sis?"
It had been at least a month, if not more. Since that's around when I'd gone down to the village.
"I went to the guild and the rumor had spread everywhere. Why'd you fight?"
Three years was a long time. Ogwen, once straddling the boundary between village and town, had been inscribed on maps as the city of Ogwen of the Frontier, and it had been a year since the adventurer's guild was established. It wasn't large in scale, but it was the kingdom's measure to deal with the stirrings of the Demon King's Army and the anomalies and monsters that had sprouted up in the surrounding area.
It had been about half a year since Asilie, who had originally been an adventurer, re-registered and started occasionally taking on simple requests to help with our livelihood.
"I fought for my convictions."
"Cut the bullshit."
"What do you mean, bullshit? I'm serious."
It wasn't a lie. I'd just gone to the smithy to fix my practice longsword and ended up dealing with some thugs who suddenly jumped me trying to take it. Maybe because the village had suddenly grown, those types had increased a bit, so I just taught them a lesson without compromising my convictions.
Namely, the conviction of never messing with Eldmia.
"I even kept your reputation in mind, Sis. I put one hand behind my back and only used my left to teach them a lesson."
At first we'd only been cautious because we were selling equipment taken from dead bandits, but after that Asilie stopped bothering to hide that she was an elf when we visited town. An elf and a human child living together wasn't common, so naturally we became one of the town's favorite bits of gossip. With her active in the Adventurers' Guild, I couldn't exactly let people slander our family as a pack of violent lunatics, could I?
"It's not like I had anything to gain from going around beating up punks like that. Well, honestly, I did fight with one hand behind my back partly as training, but I didn't go around voluntarily picking fights for the sake of it."
"Punks? Those kids were four years older than you..."
"What does being born earlier matter? They acted like punks."
When I answered indifferently, Asilie gave a smile with a complicated expression.
She didn't seem to have any intention of getting angry about it. Then again, since I hadn't done anything wrong in the first place and hadn't fought impulsively, there was no reason for me to get scolded.
"But how'd you suddenly hear about that?"
"Someone's been asking around, trying to find out who it was that beat up those kids."
"Huh?"
What? There are hypocritical parents in this world too? Weird.
Every last one of those kids had looked like they had no parents though.