Chapter 15
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: An Elf's Apology
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“General Bin, please get up. The camp is ready.”
On the first day, the second day, and following the third…
Until the seventh night, our expedition party had not been attacked at all.
I did feel like things were going a little too smoothly, but hey, don't days like this happen sometimes?
This was much better than being suddenly misunderstood and attacked by an Overlord.
Smiles filled the faces of the soldiers gathered around the campfires, and pointless jokes were exchanged among them.
The horses were exhausted and fast asleep, and the high-ranking mage Alter had set up simple electric traps around the campsite to prepare for any potential night raids.
“General Bin. Time for dinner.”
As I carefully spooned the chicken stew the platoon leader had personally cooked into my mouth, I was reviewing the lessons Alter had given me.
“Thank you. This expedition has been comfortable, thanks to you, General.”
“...Huh?”
The platoon leader expressed his gratitude to me and Rireu, who were reading our notes and grimoires by the light of the campfire.
What is it? What’s he thankful for?
The only things I’d done on this expedition were take down Alter's words, review them, and repeatedly pass out in the carriage.
There was no reason for the platoon leader to be thankful to me.
“...Ah!”
Was it because I always greeted every soldier I met politely, despite my high rank?
The army, after all, is just another group of people living together.
Even if one’s rank was high, it was far more beneficial for a young person to treat their elders with respect. It led to pleasant exchanges like this.
“Not at all. It was the proper thing to do.”
I smiled as brightly as I could and replied.
Indeed, the fact that good manners are an important virtue remains unchanged in any country.
…In any dimension, in any world.
“Thank you as well, Lady Rireu. I wanted to thank Lord Alter too, but he isn't here right now. Thanks to all of you, we've nearly reached our destination without a single injury.”
…?
I could understand him thanking me, but why on earth was the platoon leader thanking Rireu and Alter?
I glanced between them with a puzzled expression.
“…”
Meeting my gaze, Rireu seemed embarrassed as she pressed down on the brim of her hat with her slender fingers and lowered her head. Her pointed ears, sticking out from under the wide brim, looked particularly red, perhaps due to the firelight.
‘…Ah, I think I get it.’
The platoon leader was probably thanking them because Rireu and Alter set up magic traps around the camp every time we made camp.
After all, thanks to them, we didn't even have to post a night watch, and all the soldiers could spend their nights comfortably.
It seemed bringing Alter along on this journey, even with the slight risk, had been the right call.
Thanks to him, the soldiers could rest easy at the campsite, and I could learn various things as well.
“Y-yes…”
Rireu replied in a voice that was barely a whisper, her hat still pulled low.
“It would be better to make eye contact when you greet someone. And take off your hat, if possible.”
Like a mage hailing from the Land of Eastern Courtesy, I pointed out Rireu's insincere greeting with a solemn attitude.
“Shouldn't the younger person show respect to their elders first?”
…To be honest, I was just picking on Rireu because I wanted to say this.
‘The younger person.’
In my entire life, I never dreamed I would say such a thing to an elf.
That is, until I met this elf named Rireu.
How many chances does a human, who dies without even living a full hundred years, get to call a member of the elven race—who can easily live not just 3,000, but 5,000 years—young?
I couldn't just let such a precious opportunity slip by.
‘Hehehe…!’
My hipster-desire gauge, which needed to be periodically filled, didn't just fill up—it completely exploded.
A silly laugh kept trying to escape my lips. I clenched and shook my fists, savoring the pleasure of this moment.
‘How many humans have ever said something like this to an elf? Maybe I'm the first one in the capital? No, maybe I'm the only one on this entire continent who's had this experience…’
Wow, damn, that’s an insane thought.
The thought of myself as a continent-scale hipster sent shivers down my spine.
“Heh heh…”
“…”
While I was feeling fulfilled for the first time in a while, Rireu clutched her quill pen, curled into a ball, and stayed frozen like that for some time, her eyes fixed on the ground.
In contrast to me, who was happily spooning chicken stew into my mouth with a satisfied smile, Rireu just held her stew bowl for a long time, her skin flushed red as if she were physically unwell.
Due to my cursed body, I wasn't a very fast eater. I felt bloated every time I swallowed, so I generally couldn't eat quickly.
Yet, by the time I had finished half my bowl of stew, the stew in Rireu's bowl hadn't decreased at all.
“It's getting cold. Why aren't you eating?”
I asked, looking at her with a curious gaze.
“Uh, ah…”
“...?”
“Well… so…”
“Sergeant Tian! Don't be ridiculous! There’s no such thing in this world!”
“No, it's true! The rats from our old barracks had tails as big as your head!”
Rireu muttered something in a voice that was barely a whisper, but her words were drowned out by the soldiers' laughter that rang out just then.
“Pardon?”
When I raised my voice slightly to ask her to speak up, her slender shoulders flinched, and she clamped her mouth shut as if she’d gone mute.
…Seriously, it’s not like she has a communication disorder.
I put my stew bowl on the ground and quietly waited for Rireu to speak, trying to let her know I wasn't angry.
“...Should I… apologize?”
The voice she forced out after nearly two minutes of silence was no different from the squeak of a mouse.
“Apologize? To whom?”
“To that… platoon leader, from just now. I don't want to seem rude…”
“…”
Good grief.
It seemed this elf had been agonizing over a single comment I made to satisfy my pointless desires, so much so that she couldn't even eat.
…I was starting to feel a little bad.
“Do you want to apologize?”
Rireu pressed her hat down firmly with one hand to keep it from falling off and nodded.
It wasn't a big enough offense to warrant an apology, but… if she wanted to do it, who was I to stop her?
“Then go do it. And take off your hat.”
I actively encouraged her.
After all, I couldn't say I had no responsibility for this situation…
“Take off my hat, too?”
“That's considered polite among humans.”
“…”
Rireu let out a small sigh, clenched and unclenched her fists a few times, then carefully placed her stew on the ground and slowly approached the group of soldiers where the platoon leader was.
“If we’re going by that, our old barracks was worse! Sergeant Tian, did you know that if you don't manage the weeds, they can grow as tall as the fortress walls?”
“That's crazy talk! At that point, it's not a weed, it's a divine tree, you bastard!”
Rireu stopped in front of the platoon leader, who had placed his empty stew bowl on the ground and was listening with interest to their silly talk.
“U-um, about before… I'm sorry!”
Rireu quickly took off her hat, bowed, and blurted out in a cracking voice before turning around.
“…”
While the platoon leader and his men stared blankly, not understanding what was happening, Rireu quickly ran back to the tree stump where I was sitting.
Then, as if she were suddenly starving, she picked up her stew bowl from the ground and started moving her spoon diligently.
Watching her, I gently patted her on the back as a sign of a job well done.
When my hand touched her back, Rireu flinched in surprise and almost dropped her spoon.
“…”
After a brief pause, she carefully turned her head to look at me. With her cheeks full of stew, she gave me a bewildered look.
…I didn't expect this kind of reaction.
“Uh, well. Just saying you did a good job.”
Ah, damn, this is awkward.
* * *
Watching the white-haired boy patting the back of Rireu, who had started to hurriedly eat her stew with her hat pulled down low, the soldiers whispered quietly among themselves.
To anyone watching, what had just happened was not normal.
A typical elf has a lifespan ten, or even more than fifty, times that of a human.
That elven mage, who looked to be twenty at most, was in fact almost certainly the oldest among them.
And yet, such an elf.
Came to apologize for her rudeness?
…A member of that race, notorious for being ill-mannered?
“What in the world is going on?”
The platoon leader asked his subordinates, tilting his head in bewilderment.
“...What did you do, platoon leader?”
His men were just as clueless.
“I don't know what, but don't you think Lord Bin made her do it earlier?”
Watching the elf with her head bowed in shame and the white-haired boy patting her back, anyone would think so.
“Lord Bin?”
“Why on earth… would he make an elf… do something like that?”
In the short silence, only the sound of crackling firewood echoed between them.
There was no one among them sharp enough to grasp the white-haired boy's intentions.
“...They say there are many eccentrics among mages, but I really don't understand this. Lord Bin is usually so gentle and has been so good to us…”
“When you went to them with the stew earlier, platoon leader, didn't you have a conversation? Did something happen then?”
“Ah, now that you mention it… Lord Bin did… reprimand… Lady Rireu, saying it's proper manners to take off one's hat when speaking to others…”
It was an unbelievable situation.
Teaching an elf manners?
He taught human etiquette to that proud and ill-mannered race?
Elves were a race so far removed from etiquette and manners that one with the appearance of a twelve-year-old would send a ninety-year-old man on a coffee run.
They were a race that lived with a wall built between them and politeness, and yet, he taught human etiquette to one of them.
And by a boy who was sixteen, maybe seventeen, at most.
“Then one thing is certain: Lord Bin made Lady Rireu apologize. It's a given. There's no way a rude race like the elves would apologize first.”
“But… why? Why would Lord Bin bother? She wasn't rude to him.”
“Just for fun…? There are a lot of eccentric people among mages.”
“I don't think so. Lord Bin is usually very polite. I don't want to think that was all a facade.”
“Then… maybe he just has a personality that's extremely sensitive to manners, someone who can't overlook rudeness…?”
At Sergeant Tian's opinion, silence fell once more.
Tragically, with their level of intellect, that was the only theory they could come up with to explain this insane situation.
The boy named Bin was someone who valued etiquette so much that he would break the pride of a high-nosed, arrogant elf and force her to apologize.
At least for now, for the soldiers gathered around this campfire, that became the truth.
“He always greeted us with a smile first, so I thought he had a really gentle personality… but he was hiding his fangs.”
“As expected… not just anyone can be a member of the Sword Saint's party…”
The soldiers began to revise the impression they had of Bin.
“Listen up, everyone. From today on, no matter what, you must treat Lord Bin with the utmost respect. Don't get complacent just because he's nice to you. Absolutely do not try to get on his level, not even a little. Don't even think about treating him as an equal. He seems like the type who won't let any rudeness slide.”
After a brief moment of thought, the platoon leader warned his soldiers.
At his warning, a chill ran down the spines of the soldiers near the fire.
For a truly trivial mistake—not taking off her hat during a greeting—he had subjected an elf to great humiliation.
If that rudeness were directed not at someone else, but at himself, how would that boy react?
A bloodbath would surely sweep through the unit.
“Absolutely. Do not do anything disrespectful. Treat him with the utmost respect.”
That night, the soldiers couldn't help but stay awake, re-examining their own behavior over the past week.
* * *
“You're awake, sir!”
“Good morning, General!”
As soon as I opened my eyes to the morning sun, resounding greetings echoed from all directions.
“Uh… yes. Good mor—”
“General, you're awake, sir!”
“Good morning, General Bin!”
Before I could even finish my sentence, soldiers rushed toward me as if competing to greet me first. Their voices were filled with vigor.
What the.
Why are they acting like this all of a sudden? Did they all take some kind of drug?
“Good morning, General Lord Bin! The morning roll call has already been completed! The horses are in good condition, and the carriage wheel inspection is also finished! Today, barring any encounters with monsters or Mazoku, we are scheduled to arrive at the Enkir Plateau at approximately 13:00 hours…”
Why is the platoon leader suddenly addressing me so formally, with my full name and title?
Please don't do this.
You're scaring me…
Taken aback by the soldiers' overnight change in attitude, I quickly threw the sleeping bag I'd used into the luggage wagon and hurried to hide in a corner of the carriage.
What is it? What is wrong with these people?
“We are departing!”
The infantrymen and the horses they rode shouted vigorously as if they had been waiting for this very moment, and set off on the expedition route once more.
“...Everyone's so sharp and alert, as if they've just been disciplined.”
Alter glanced at me as he commented on the unusually spirited soldiers.
“Maybe it's because we're about to arrive at the Enkir Plateau? Since we'll probably be confronting a dragon today…?”
I said, my voice trailing off uncertainly.
How would I know why they were all so fired up?
“...It will be the first time for most of them to see a dragon in person.”
Rireu spoke in a quiet voice, as if agreeing with me.
“They say men are just children, even when they're grown up, and it's true. To get this excited over a dragon.”
Her tone contained a faint, almost unnoticeable trace of smugness.