A Child Never Understands a Parent's Heart
Aaron remembered the day he first met the little girl standing before him.
He had rushed over with reinforcements after hearing that the city was under attack by a swarm of monsters, only to find a place already turned into utter chaos.
Canaria had been one of the city’s survivors.
“That girl’s going to amount to something big.”
Garid had said it as he looked down at the sleeping child cradled in his arms.
Courage that didn’t flinch even before an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, a cool head, and a mind that never bent no matter how hard you pressed it—those were not things you expected to see in a small child who looked, at most, five or six years old.
Aaron, recalling the little girl fighting monsters head-on, had agreed with him.
“So… what will you do? Try to find her family?”
Even knowing it was probably useless, Aaron had asked anyway.
Her clothes were torn and ragged. Her face and body were filthy.
She had a face so pretty you might have mistaken her for some noble’s child, but the moment you looked at the rest of her, it was obvious she was a long way from any kind of privileged upbringing.
She must have had no parents, or if she had, they would never have survived that slaughter.
“I’ll look, at least. And if I can’t find them….”
“...If you can’t?”
“Maybe I’ll make her my daughter.”
“...Excuse me? Just like that?”
Aaron had seen Garid feel sympathy for children who’d lost their parents or were otherwise in bad circumstances, but he’d never seen him go that far before.
Unable to hide his shock, Aaron had stared at him, and Garid had answered with a grin.
“I liked her.”
The girl who accepted the adoption offer became Garid’s daughter.
Since Aaron’s relationship with Garid had never been just that of coworkers, but something closer to true friendship, he often came and went from Garid’s house, and more than once he had looked after Canaria in Garid’s place.
Even if he kept using honorifics, Canaria had become as dear to him as a daughter—perhaps even as much as a foster daughter.
“The Commander hasn’t changed a bit.”
“...What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean your height, obviously. I kept telling you to eat vegetables when you were little instead of only meat, but both you and Garid never listened, and so-”
“Ah, ahhh— I can’t hear you—”
Canaria clapped her hands over her ears and shook her head.
She looked exactly like a child desperate not to hear a scolding.
Aaron shot her a displeased look, but when he finally stopped nagging, she stopped shaking her head too.
“You know it’s not because I’m a picky eater. If it weren’t for that perverted lizard, I’d be twice as tall as this.”
“...I think the only person who talks about Grasid-nim like that is you, Commander. And twice as tall? What are you even talking about?”
And Canaria was likely the only person who could say such a thing and get away with it.
“If a thing’s perverted, I’m going to call it perverted. What else would I call it?”
“...Fine. Let’s just move on.”
“More importantly, where have you been all this time? You disappeared right after the war ended, and even when we looked, we couldn’t find you.”
He had a rough idea where she’d been, but he still asked.
“Garid’s grave.”
“I thought so. You were there after all.”
Canaria’s answer was exactly what Aaron had expected.
“...You knew?”
“You never really made any friends, and you’re not the kind of person who’d just throw yourself into the Empire, so if we were talking about places the Commander would go, that was pretty much the only one, wasn’t it?”
“Eric didn’t have a clue, though.”
“You met Eric too? What’s that bastard been up to?”
“Yeah. He’s working as the guard captain of Ordo.”
“...Guard captain? Him? I can’t even picture it.”
“He’s gotten older.”
“...?”
How old was Canaria now?
Aaron did the math in his head.
She’d been six when he first saw her, and a little more than ten years had passed since then….
So she’s about seventeen.
For someone not even twenty yet to talk like that about a man much older than herself.
What made it even funnier was that Canaria looked younger than her actual age, so Aaron found her words all the more absurd.
“If you already knew, why didn’t you come looking for us? Garid would’ve been hurt.”
“Sometimes, one needs time alone.”
“...Huh?”
At Canaria’s confused look, Aaron simply smiled.
“Since the Commander’s here now, I suppose I’ll have to pay him a visit later.”
“Yeah. Oh, but not when I’m not around. That snake bastard put up a barrier.”
“...Snake bastard? You mean that one?”
“Is there some other snake bastard I could be talking about?”
“...What on earth happened? Surely you coming outside is related to that?”
“It’s not unrelated. Thanks to that snake bastard, I could come out to take care of something I was curious about.”
Canaria pulled over a guest chair and sat down.
She was already small, and with the desk in the way, Aaron could barely see anything of her except the top of her head.
“I had a question about Apostles.”
“Apostles….”
“Do you know anything?”
“No. I just—”
Aaron let out a sigh.
“These days, the Apostles have been giving Liberi quite a headache.”
People who had suddenly appeared on Ardina under Edel’s guidance.
It would be a lie to say they weren’t helpful, but the trouble they caused was hardly limited to one or two things.
Aaron’s post was education director.
He dealt only with matters related to training and didn’t involve himself deeply in other administrative affairs, but he knew the mood in Liberi well enough.
Most people treated them favorably because they were the ones Edel had brought….
“But there’s no lack of complaints.”
Existing mercenaries had to grind for years, building skill and achievement before passing strict evaluations and being recognized as the next rank.
But the Apostles were different.
Their evaluations were far more lenient than those of ordinary mercenaries—practically reduced to little more than having enough accomplishments—and even those requirements were much lower than usual.
There were plenty of mercenaries who felt resentment at the obvious favoritism.
“Why should it matter that they’re favored by Lady Edel? At the very least, the evaluations should be fair,” and so on.
“Why not just make everyone follow the same rules?”
“If only it were that simple. If we made the existing mercenaries’ evaluations any easier, more people would end up losing their lives.”
The Apostles could get away with being a little lacking in skill.
After all, Edel’s protection meant they could revive endlessly.
But the people of the Ardina Continent didn’t have endless lives.
If they carelessly lowered the standards and handed out high ranks to just anyone, someone might take a job beyond their means and die for it.
Liberi wanted to raise mercenaries, not build disposable tools to send out and die in battle.
“Then do the opposite.”
“Ha… If we could do that, we would have.”
It was such a simple solution, so why couldn’t they just do it?
First of all, they were getting stronger far too quickly compared with the pace at which they were accumulating accomplishments.
Even if their experience was a little lacking, their physical strength and the magi within them were in no way inferior to those of ordinary mercenaries.
But that wasn’t the truly important issue.
“This came straight from Lady Edel herself. Do you understand? She said it through divine revelation.”
“...Edel?”
“We can’t do it this way or that way. It’s maddening.”
At the very least, there was nowhere on the Ardina Continent that could ignore Edel’s divine revelation.
Even the Ro Arca Empire, whose prestige reached the heavens, bowed its head before Edel and the Sedes Holy Kingdom.
“She suddenly brought people over from across the sea, and on top of that she said all this…. I have no idea what she’s thinking.”
“Who knows.”
As Canaria listened to Aaron’s grumbling, she fell into thought for a moment.
“A continent across the sea, huh….”
“Do you know something?”
“...No.”
Canaria shook her head.
“That’s why I’m going to the Holy Kingdom.”
To ask Edel.
* * *
“You’re going to ask Lady Edel?”
Aaron rubbed at his ear as if he’d just heard something absurd.
“This is the first divine revelation they’ve had in hundreds of years, isn’t it? Do you really think that’ll work?”
“If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.”
At least I can try.
Aaron made a thoroughly skeptical face.
“I’m saying this because I don’t think you’ll even manage to try. If it were you, Commander, you’d probably say, ‘I want to talk to Edel,’ but do you think Lady Edel is some childhood friend living next door? You really think she’ll go, ‘Oh, I see! Come right this way!’?”
“...I-I wasn’t planning to do that—”
“Weren’t planning to? Please. How many years have I known you? Save the lies for someone you can fool.”
“...”
I couldn’t bring myself to deny Aaron’s words.
Because I felt like I probably would have acted exactly as he said.
When I pouted my lips, Aaron softened his voice a little.
“Well, I suppose the possibility isn’t completely zero.”
“...A minute ago you said it wouldn’t work.”
“According to the faithful, Lady Edel listens to every prayer offered in the chapel. So if the Commander offers a sincere prayer, she might answer.”
“I’m not one of her believers.”
“This might be a good chance to start believing in Lady Edel.”
“...”
I had no intention of suddenly taking up religion, so that wasn’t exactly helpful advice.
“I’ll go and think about it there.”
“Do as you please. When have you ever listened to me anyway?”
“It’s not like I never listened.”
“And that’s why you were so hell-bent on avoiding vegetables.”
“...You’re bringing that up again?”
The conversation had gone in a circle and come back to picky eating again.
It was an old, wearisome topic I’d heard since forever, so I shuddered and changed the subject.
“Enough about those disgusting vegetables. Why are you working here?”
Aaron looked like he had a great deal he wanted to say, but in the end he swallowed it back and let out a long sigh.
“What else could I do with the skills I’ve learned? I didn’t want to go to the Empire, and when Liberi offered me the job of education director, I jumped at it—figured I might as well escape my eternal fate as vice-commander while I was at it.”
Eternal vice-commander.
That was one of the nicknames people used to tease Aaron.
When Garid had been commander, Aaron had been vice-commander; then, when I’d taken the commander’s seat, he’d been temporarily demoted to an ordinary squad member.
And when Garid died and I became commander, he returned to the vice-commander post.
So strictly speaking, he wasn’t an “eternal” vice-commander, but it was a joke implying he would never in his life become commander himself.
Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered a similar kind of joke in my past life, aimed at some pro gamer or another.
Too bad I couldn’t remember the name.
“Should I come work here too? As your education officer.”
“Please don’t.”
I shrugged.
It wasn’t a serious suggestion to begin with, only a way to tease him about being an eternal vice-commander.
Just as I was about to say I was kidding, Aaron beat me to it.
“Have you no pity for the mercenaries?”
“...?”
...That’s what the problem was?
“Why would I pity the mercenaries?”
“...Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?”
“Yeah.”
Why would I ask if I already knew? Would I bother asking if I didn’t need to?
My deadpan reaction made him press a hand to his forehead.
“Forget it. Anyway, please refrain from teaching anyone as much as possible.”
Because the people who’d have to receive instruction from the Commander would be the ones to suffer.
At his added remark, I blinked wordlessly.
I kept blinking in silence for a long while.
Perhaps sensing something, Aaron lowered the hand from his forehead and asked carefully,
“...That isn’t what I think it is, is it?”
“...”
“Oh, Canaria….”
It had been so long since he’d called me by name that I flinched before I could stop myself.
Aaron folded both hands together primly.
“What sin did that man commit in his past life to meet Canaria…. May he go to a good place.”
“...Don’t go around declaring people dead on your own.”
Besides, Apostles didn’t even stay dead.