Ordo, the Free City
“Then why are you here?”
I had thought I might run into a familiar face, but I hadn’t expected it to be him.
“With your skills, you could’ve gone somewhere better.”
“Aw, come on, Commander! What’s wrong with Ordo? This place is great to live in.”
Eric grumbled as he leaned back in his chair.
“Ordo is my hometown. I’m not interested in playing knight anymore, and I still have to make a living somehow. This is about the right position for me.”
“Hmm….”
Hearing the resignation in his voice, I found myself thinking back to the Eric I used to know.
It felt like only yesterday that he’d been a pup charging around without a clue how terrifying a tiger could be. He’d changed a lot.
“So even a foolish little brat grows up and matures once enough years go by.”
“A brat…. Well, I suppose that’s true.”
“…Got something to say?”
Eric gave me the sort of look one might reserve for a lunatic spouting nonsense, then quickly rearranged his face.
“Goodness, of course not! How could I possibly say a word against our heavenly Commander?”
No doubt he was thinking something like, How could I be called a brat by someone younger and smaller than me…?
So obvious.
Still, he hadn’t said it out loud, so I’d let it go.
“That guard from earlier….”
“You mean Garrett?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s from Ordo, right? He didn’t seem to understand Granic.”
“He is from Ordo. And yes, he doesn’t speak Granic.”
“…How does that make sense?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
Eric spoke as he poured the tea with practiced ease.
“To be blunt, the Grasis Kingdom’s been going downhill for a long time, hasn’t it? Anyone with money ran off to the Empire, and children born these days are taught Arkish first. It’s not strange for younger people not to speak Granic.”
“But you do.”
“I have the same reason you do, Commander. My father always loved Grasis….”
Come to think of it, Garid’s patriotism had been the sort that would make anyone else feel inadequate.
But Eric was wrong.
Garid had spoken Arkish too.
Even if we’re not on good terms now, you never know what might happen later, so it can’t hurt to learn. In that sense, Cana, why don’t you learn it too?
Not particularly….
Tch. Cold.
I vaguely remembered that conversation.
Like Eric had said, it had been the trend in Grasis before the kingdom fell for both commoners and nobles to learn Arkish, but that only applied to people who could afford to live decently.
For gutter-trash like me—worse off than commoners—I had to pick up even Granic by ear and slowly piece it together from what I heard.
Of course, after Garid adopted me, I just couldn’t be bothered to learn Arkish.
“...Don’t kill him. He’s inflexible, but he’s diligent.”
“...What do you take me for?”
I was a little offended, sure, but that didn’t mean I was some crazy woman who’d lop off the head of a man just for doing his job.
“If it’d been you, maybe.”
“No, why am I suddenly in the conversation….”
As Eric muttered miserably, he pulled something from his pocket.
It was the badge I’d shown that guard, Garrett, earlier.
“I’ll return this for now. And I’ll give you something to prove your identity, so from now on, please….”
“Got it. You’re saying I shouldn’t take it out.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
Then, after a pause, he asked, “By the way, where in the world have you been? There were quite a few people in the unit who wanted to see the Commander, but nobody knew where you were.”
“...Wanted to see me? Who?”
“Is it just one or two? If I had to name the most persistent one, it’d be the vice commander.”
“Ah, the vice commander.”
Eric and I spent a while catching up.
“So where were you?”
“At Garid’s grave.”
“...Well, that explains why I never thought of it.”
“Even if you had, you wouldn’t have found me.”
Nobody knew where Garid had been buried.
Not because I wanted it that way, but because Garid had.
We also exchanged a few trivial bits of gossip.
By the time the sun had fully gone down and the lights spilling from the inn had replaced the hot daylight, brightening the streets, our conversation was over.
After taking a sip of tea that had gone lukewarm, Eric said, “Still, it’s nice to see you after so long, Commander.”
“...I don’t like the ‘still,’ but yes. Me too.”
“What are you planning to do now?”
“I’m going to the Sedes Holy Kingdom.”
“The Sedes Holy Kingdom? Don’t tell me it’s because of the Apostle?”
“That too.”
When I stopped there and closed my mouth, he nodded.
“Would you like to have dinner with me? It’s on me.”
“My party’s waiting for me. Maybe next time.”
“Ah, right. Then when you come to Ordo again, I’ll treat you properly. So don’t get hurt and come back, all right? Though, honestly, it doesn’t really seem like you’d get hurt in the first place.”
Hahaha!
Watching Eric laugh so heartily, I allowed the corners of my mouth to lift, just barely.
“Don’t go worrying about me.”
You should be worrying about yourself.
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Knock, knock.
“...She’s gone?”
“Yeah.”
Garrett carefully opened the guard post door and stepped inside.
He craned his head back and forth, searching for the girl, and once he confirmed she had gone, he let out a relieved breath and patted his chest.
But relief was one thing; the real question was what on earth that girl’s identity had been to make his superior react like that.
Unable to hold back his curiosity, Garrett asked Eric, “Um, Captain….”
“Forget about it. And forget what you saw.”
Eric cut him off cleanly.
For a moment, he thought back to the past.
To Cana as she had been when the former Commander, Garid, was still alive, and to Cana after Garid had passed away.
After thinking of those two versions of her in succession, he then recalled the Cana he’d just been speaking with.
She really has softened.
The expression and voice still gave nothing away.
She wasn’t as open-faced as she’d been the first time he’d seen her, but she also wasn’t as rigid as she’d been the last time.
I suppose time hasn’t changed only me, Commander.
Swallowing the words he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud, he smiled faintly.
Commander!
Shut up.
No, I can still keep fighting! Didn’t you say it yourself before, Commander? That a dog who runs away in fear is useless!
Stop spouting nonsense and get out of the way. You’re in the way.
Eric could never forget the pink eyes looking down at him as he lay defeated, but he also couldn’t forget the small back that had bled and still stood in front of him.
A filthy commoner in the Crimson Knights…? The knight order’s dignity has sunk to the ground.
...What?
Ah, damn. Did you hear that? Sorry, I was just talking with my comrades.
You little bastard—
Hey, you there. What are you doing?
...Huh?
Co-Commander!
You look free. Spar with me.
Huh? N-no, uh….
Refusal is still a refusal.
And then there was the sight of her beating the tar out of some unit member who had mocked Eric, reducing him to a bloody pulp.
...Of course, that incident had carried a fair amount of the Commander’s own personal bias, so there was that.
Which was why Eric couldn’t bring himself to hate the girl.
“If word of what happened today leaks out, then next time….”
“....”
Gulp.
Garrett swallowed hard.
“I-I’ll absolutely keep my mouth shut…!”
“Good, good. It’s late anyway, so go home already.”
“Yes, sir! Loyalty!”
Garrett hurried out of the guard post.
He was an unnecessarily diligent guy, so there was no need to worry about the secret getting out.
Watching Garrett’s retreating back, Eric let out a long sigh.
“You’ve really changed a lot, Commander.”
To think he’d get to see the girl who had once lost her anchor and drifted through life without meaning now step into the world under her own will.
Eric muttered that he’d live long enough to see all sorts of things.
“Still, the height hasn’t changed one bit.”
After finally saying what he’d never dared to say to her face, he chuckled.
Creak.
Startled, he jerked upright.
“...!”
At the sudden sound, Eric looked around in a panic. Then, not trusting himself, he opened the door and checked outside as well, and once he was satisfied, he let out a relieved breath just as Garrett had.
“Damn it, it was just the wind.”
I’d been thinking that facing the past was nothing but unpleasant, but apparently that wasn’t entirely true.
The heaviness dragging at my chest had eased.
No—if anything, I felt even better than before.
“It won’t always be like this, though.”
I wasn’t a kid, and I had no interest in childish faction fights, but if I had to put it plainly, Eric belonged to my side.
If the one I’d met today had been from some other faction, things definitely wouldn’t have ended so warmly.
We might even have had a bloodbath on our hands.
In that sense, meeting Eric had been lucky.
Come to think of it… where had Joni gone?
She had definitely come into Ordo with me, but we’d split up before we’d even had a chance to arrange a meeting point, so I had no idea where she was now.
Though part of me suspected that, wherever I was, Joni would find me before long, I still wandered the streets looking for her.
Even though it was pitch-dark, Ordo’s streets glowed brightly.
“Welcome! Staying the night?”
“We just got in some incredible meat—care to try it?”
“Ladies and gentlemen! Come have dinner with us! We’ve got delicious liquor too!”
I couldn’t understand the words, but the energy in their voices came through loud and clear.
With my hood pulled low, I let myself feel the bustle of Ordo, and before long I spotted the person I’d been looking for.
Joni was standing in front of an inn, holding up a sign written in Arkish.
Your words can change this rotten Ordo. Please lend your strength.
People glanced at the sign in her hands and either walked on by or stopped to ask her something.
“What happened?”
“There’s a child I think of like my own little sister. She came into Ordo with me, but she was falsely accused and taken by the guards. She’s such a kind… child….”
“Oh, no….”
The people who heard her looked at her with sympathetic expressions.
For some reason, this feels bad.
I had the distinct feeling that if I got swept up in this, it would turn into a pain in the ass.
And usually, when I had that kind of feeling, I was right.
Just as I started edging away, Joni abruptly lifted her head.
“What? You mean that’s Cana? Where?!“
My name, clear as day.
I spun around in a hurry, but Joni had somehow caught on anyway. She tossed the sign aside and ran straight at me.
“Cana…. ...My little sister!”
“Who are you calling little sister….”
With great enthusiasm, she didn’t even bother calling my name—she just wrapped her arms tightly around me.
The people around us watched with moved expressions.
Some of the more sensitive ones even wiped tears from the corners of their eyes.
Held snugly in her arms, I let out a quiet sigh.
This is a mess.
Really, truly.
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