The Retired Hero Writhes in the Past
This happened a little while after I began my seclusion.
In the wake of that incident, I severed what few human connections I still had left—everyone except my former comrades. I cut them off unilaterally.
I knew they harbored no malice toward me.
But that was reason talking. While my rational mind tried to pull itself together, my emotions had already broken down beyond repair. Even the face of a complete stranger was enough to set my heart hammering like mad.
After that day, the mere fact of being bound to another person became a source of terror.
And so I severed every tie and attempted to live in seclusion in a rural village.
Luna.
My master.
A great dragon who took me in, raised me, and educated me.
The strongest being I knew. The most beautiful. The most brilliant. And kinder than anyone—a benefactor to me in every sense of the word.
If there was one truly stupid thing I did, it was attempting to cut ties even with her.
And that attempt produced the second-greatest regret of my entire life.
My master, who lived a life bordering on immortality, left her domain—the snow-capped mountains she had never once descended from—and tracked me down.
Master had beautiful silver hair and skin so pale it was nearly translucent.
Silver hair. White skin. White, as one would expect. Naturally white.
So why did she look like she was burning crimson as she came charging toward me...?
"A red... demon...?"
Instinct screamed.
Run.
Naturally, my attempt at escape was utterly pointless before Master.
She radiated a pressure utterly at odds with her small frame, snatched me by the head mid-flight, and crushed my feeble resistance in a mere five seconds.
"You unfilial disciple, you! Over three months without a visit, not so much as a snack brought to me—what in the world have you been doing?"
"Mmph... M-Master..."
"Leaving behind some strange letter!! Is this how you repay the kindness of being raised!! #@$!"
"Mmmphhh—"
"Have you caught some status ailment??!! Fine! Since ancient times, the rod has been the best medicine!!"
Thwack—
Thwack—
Thwack—
Was it the wound of betrayal? No.
Was it the terror of human connection? Absolutely not.
The reason I couldn't form proper words and fell into utter confusion back then was, quite clearly, terror of Master's wrath.
Primal fear...
Yeah. That had to be it.
"Hmm... You really are in a strange state, aren't you?
Ah! I see—your heart has grown lazy! In times like these, this is the medicine."
Master drew out a thin, long rod of some indescribable material—soft and yielding, yet somehow hard at the same time.
The universal gesture of resistance, understood the world over since time immemorial: shaking one's head vigorously side to side—
"Mmph..! Mmmmph!!! Mmph-mmph!!"
"What's that? You want me to hurry up? Master's ears aren't going bad, you brat. I can hear you just fine when you speak softly."
"Mmmmph! Mmph!"
Poke—
Sliiiide—
"Mmmph!"
In the end, the rod began to violate the deepest reaches of my nasal cavity.
"Mmmmmmmph!—"
"Like this, like this... Hmm. So this is the problem area."
This was something I had endured from time to time ever since I was a child under her tutelage. I never understood the principle behind it. Whenever I was deeply wounded and sunk in depression, she would mess with my brain in exactly this fashion. And afterward, miraculously, the gloom and pain in my heart would ease... but it hurt like absolute hell.
Was the brain even an organ you were supposed to poke around in like that?
While I harbored that most fundamental of questions, Master spent several astonishing minutes stirring around inside my brain, then withdrew the rod from my nose with a look of satisfaction.
"There now. Doesn't the world look brighter?"
No matter how many times it happened, I never got used to it...
And yet the effect was undeniable. Every anxiety and agony had been buried in the deep ocean, and my heart found calm.
"Yes... M-Master..."
"That's more like it. You've been getting beaten and crying since you were little, so I researched this medical art myself. Hahaha!"
"Well then, time for your scolding— Ah!"
I found myself gathered into Master's arms.
A familiar scent.
It was comforting.
My heart began to settle.
At the sight of Master laughing so heartily, at that familiar scent of hers, childhood nostalgia rose up and soothed me.
It had been so long.
After that day, I hadn't been able to sleep soundly for even a moment. Simply being alive had felt like agony. I couldn't trust anyone. The gazes directed at me were too frightening. People terrified me.
Every pair of eyes in the world tormented me.
I wanted to die, and yet I couldn't.
The grief I had been suppressing, the injustice of it all, surged up and overflowed. I had suffered it without even knowing why.
It was so bitterly unfair. Why did I have to go through something like that? I had given everything I had for everyone.
It was so bitterly unjust. Why should I have to be afraid of people...
"Why... why are you like this? I... I wasn't that angry, you know? You're all right, aren't you, my disciple? Calm yourself..."
Master looked flustered, apparently under some strange misunderstanding.
"Hmm... I don't know what happened, but you're all right now..."
And so I wept for a long time in Master's arms.
Just this much was good.
This degree of happiness suited me.
I could finally rest easy.
For the first time in a year, I was able to sleep in peace.
An old dream, after so long...
Was the fire clinging to Master back then real...? Mmh...
Knock... knock...
A knock sounded at a house where no one ever came calling. What on earth?
"Aaron, go see who it is."
I could hear Master saying something... but I couldn't make it out clearly... I wasn't going to listen. I was sleepy.
"Mmh... mmh... mmh..."
"Aaron!!"
Master's absurdly powerful voice jolted my body into instant response—a sound that obliterated even the morning's craving for sleep in a single blow.
"All right, all right... How does a body that small even produce a sound like that..."
"This master hasn't gone deaf yet, Aaron!"
Still enduring the scolding, I opened the door to receive our guest.
And then—
Crimson twin-tails swept upward, beautiful locks of hair.
A voluptuous figure utterly unsuited to a knight.
Those red eyes that, together with her crimson hair, only made her more beautiful.
It was unmistakably Stella.
"Aaron... it's me, Stella. There's something I need to—"
I have to run.
Somewhere else. I have to get away from here.
I have to hide.
Why are you trying to torment me again? Why are you doing this?!
I had finally found peace...
I had finally started to forget the terror of human bonds!
I had finally thought I'd forgotten—
I had finally stopped being afraid...
Why.
Why!
"Why are you trying to torment me again!!!!"
Terror locked my body in place. Was I going to be dragged back to that time again?
No. Absolutely not!
"Ah... no... Aaron, it's not like that..."
The terror and revulsion I had thought vanished rose once more from the deep ocean and clamped around my throat with murderous force.
I couldn't breathe.
All I could do was collapse to the floor, gasping and trembling violently.
"A-Are you all right, Aaron!"
"Ah... Aaron!"
Stella's fingertips trembled as though she had taken a physical blow.
"Aaron, what's wrong...."
"G-Get away from me..!!"
When she approached in alarm and tried to help me up, I instinctively scrambled backward and shouted.
"D-Don't touch me... Get the hell away..!!"
"Are you all right?!"
Master, who had no idea what was going on, quickly realized something was terribly wrong and gathered me into her arms in an instant.
Then she looked at Stella and spoke.
"My apologies, young lady, but my disciple is in a bad state. I must ask you to leave for today."
Stella made no effort to hide her discomfort as she regarded Master.
"I'm sorry, but who exactly are you? Forgive me, but this is between Aaron and me. Please don't interfere."
"I don't know what relationship you may have with this body's disciple, but Aaron comes first for me... I have no leisure to concern myself with anything else right now..."
She spoke as though calmly reasoning—but the killing intent pouring from the pure white eyes of a dragon, an ancient dragon no less, was something else entirely.
No matter how skilled a human might be, there was no way a mere mortal could withstand it.
"..."
"I-I'm sorry... But no matter what, there's something I absolutely must tell Aaron... Please..."
Stella was a capable knight. She grasped the overwhelming difference in power almost immediately, and still she pleaded with desperate earnestness.
"Not now. I shall pass on your message once Aaron wakes."
"I understand... I'll come again another time... Please... I beg you..."
"It's fine... At least I've found where he's living now..."
Stella offered her farewells, muttered quietly to herself, and turned away.
Once Stella had gone, Master carefully asked me—now barely calm again—
"Could it be... that the reason you became like this has something to do with the young lady who just visited?"
"..."
Master had asked me many times what had happened. I had never answered.
It wasn't particularly that I was hiding it out of concern for those women. Master, for all her ways, clearly cherished me. If she heard the truth, she might well crush not only the comrades who had done this to me, but the entire nation I had belonged to, right then and there.
Before her power, such a thing would be perfectly reasonable—even justified.
Power of that magnitude.
But I didn't want Master drawing attention to herself.
Even for her, if she caused a spectacle like that, there was no telling what might follow.
If a multinational subjugation force were assembled... I preferred that such a thing never come to pass.
And more than anything... so long as my days were spent with Master, things like revenge or the past simply didn't matter. I had no desire to dredge up that disgusting history at this point, either...
Perhaps she had sensed my feelings. At some point, Master stopped asking.
"And yet... why now, of all times...!!!!!"
Master wore a worried expression as she spoke carefully.
"Calm yourself, Aaron..."
"I don't know the full particulars... but clearly your suffering is connected to her, isn't it?
Just looking at your reaction is enough to get a rough idea, you brat."
"I hate seeing you in pain... But you can't keep running forever, can you? I am always on your side, Aaron. Perhaps you might try... talking with her..."
Master was right.
Forgetting those women and living as I had until now was one thing... but now that I'd run into them again, there was no helping it.
Even if I fled somewhere they weren't and tried to live, now that we'd met again, they would keep surfacing in my mind and the anxiety would torment me. And if they tracked me down again, I'd run again—over and over?
I couldn't stand that anymore.
But still...
"It's all right, Aaron. Am I not right here beside you? Do you not know who your master is?"
"...I'm always grateful, Master..."
"How embarrassing, suddenly saying things like that... This disciple of mine... Hahaha!"
Master's words lightened the burden considerably. Her words always put me at ease.
Even if I turned the entire world into my enemy... so long as Master was with me, wouldn't it be all right? The thought even crossed my mind.
...Well. Physically speaking, it probably would be.
Whether it was thanks to Master, or thanks to the hope that I might escape this torment forever—
"I understand. Master, I'll go."
The answer slipped out before I knew it.