Chapter 99
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 99
Chapter Title: The Unyielding Mage
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The Overlords were dead.
Four of them, at that.
It was a great and monumental victory, one worthy of the word “unprecedented.”
Yet, there were no smiles on the faces of those leaving the battlefield.
The unconscious Bel and Grisha, who was protecting him, were the first to board a carriage and head for the capital. A deep worry, unbecoming of a soldier who had just won a long war, filled her eyes.
Despite surviving the fierce battle, the soldiers’ eyes looked hollow. It was clear they had not yet erased the images of those who had fallen beneath the mud.
And so, a day passed.
“His Majesty is waiting for you.”
A young servant was sent from the palace upon hearing the news. The stench of blood from this horrific battlefield seemed to turn his stomach. His effort not to show it was quite impressive. Not that such consideration was necessary.
After helping Rex and Alter into the back of a modified cargo wagon, the servant guided me into the carriage.
It rattles. The wheels let out a faint groan on the damaged road.
The black mud recedes into the distance.
A wind blows from somewhere.
A flag flutters.
The flag, too, grows more distant.
“…”
Rireu and I exchanged not a single word inside the carriage. It wasn't for any particular reason.
There was just… nothing to say.
Soon, a verdant green enveloped our surroundings. The horses snorted, shaking their heads at the fresh scent.
“All troops, attention!”
A powerful voice broke through my daze as I stared blankly at the carriage's interior. It was Bellua, the Red Hammer.
“To the glory of the Empire, salute!”
The sound of soldiers falling into formation followed. The thud of heavy boots striking the ground was deafening.
I slowly turned my head toward the sound.
There, countless dwarves and a few elves and humans were lined up on both sides of the supply route.
“The Black Hammer unit of the Imperial Army’s 3rd Division! We pay our respects to the general of the Allied Empire!”
“Loyalty!”
At Bellua’s command, countless soldiers raised their hands to their brows in unison.
It’s hot.
I don’t know why the Akilliptus Forest Zone is so hot and humid.
“…Loyalty.”
I raised a hand to the figures visible beyond the window.
“Huh?”
At the end of the neat formation, a man in a crisp uniform caught my eye.
His lustrous blond hair and long, slender ears revealed his race.
“Honestly, I thought you were a goner, kid.”
It was Trian. He had quietly stepped forward from the ranks to stand closer to the road, as if waiting for something.
“It’s dangerous, return to the formation…”
“Let him be.”
I cut off the coachman, stopping him.
“Remember what you said? That you’d let me have one punch if I made it back alive?”
Trian’s voice grew louder.
I burst out laughing at the absurdity, and Rireu, hearing me, let a smile grace her lips as well.
“I’m a man of my word. I’ll give you your chance.”
I leaned my head out the window, and the coachman, understanding, brought the horses to a halt.
Trian stood before the window. He glanced once at the gloomy interior of the carriage before carefully meeting my eyes.
“How does it feel to be a victorious general?”
“It feels like crap.”
I laid bare my honest feelings.
Even though we had killed four Overlords, the scene at Vellaland hadn't changed much. Bones and chunks of flesh were still hidden in the mud, the wounded were moaning, and some had lost their minds.
The fighting may have stopped, but the battlefield was still a battlefield.
People searching for their comrades’ remains in the muck, wounded soldiers crying for help from piles of corpses, and soldiers who couldn’t sleep.
Win or lose, a battlefield was a battlefield, and the victory didn't feel real.
“…Yeah. War is crap.”
I made a fist with my left hand and lightly tapped Trian’s chest. Trian maintained a rigid posture of attention.
“Let’s go!”
I leaned out the window and told the coachman to get the horses moving again.
“…Loyalty.”
Just as the horses lifted their hooves from the ground, Trian spoke in a low voice. I thought I might have misheard and turned my head back, but there he was, one hand raised to his brow.
“…”
I could only stare dumbly at Trian, who was giving me a formal salute.
My right arm wouldn't move properly, so I couldn't return the crisp salute Trian had offered me.
An uncomfortable silence passed between us.
Just as the slightly foolish thought, *‘Should I salute with my left hand?’* crossed my mind…
“…Hiyah!”
As if to break the awkward silence between us, the coachman cracked his whip at the horses.
The carriage soon left the Akilliptus Forest Zone. Trian didn't lower his right hand until he had become a tiny dot in the distance.
*‘…All I had to say was ‘at ease’.’*
What an idiotic mistake.
***
Upon arriving at the castle, the first thing I did was throw off my robe.
It was covered in stains of sweat, blood, and mud, and the smell was nauseating.
Then I walked straight to my room.
I knew a report was necessary, but I wanted to wash first. I had to get this disgusting stench off my body.
Peeling off clothes caked with sweat and filth was no easy task. My body was already feeble, and with my right hand completely useless, it took me over ten minutes just to remove my robe and clothes.
Still, I managed to get into the bath before the water cooled. The hot water soon washed away all the filth from my body.
Droplets of water formed on the ceiling of the steam-filled bathroom.
“…Hot.”
I didn't get out of the tub until my pale skin turned bright red. I felt like it would be nice if my body just melted away.
I sat in the hot bath until the point where I felt something would seriously go wrong if I stayed any longer.
Finally feeling clean, I opened the bathroom door, and my vision spun. The world’s top and bottom switched places at will.
Without even properly drying myself, I threw myself onto the bed.
I didn't have the confidence to stand properly.
And my memory of that day ends there.
***
The price for losing consciousness without properly drying off was steep. Exposed naked to the cool autumn air for several hours, I came down with a nasty cold.
A servant told me my temperature had momentarily shot up to nearly 40 degrees Celsius. Chills wracked my body and breathing was difficult, but strangely, it didn't feel painful.
I was bedridden for nearly two days.
Thanks to that, I was excused from being summoned by the kings for a report.
Rireu stayed by my side the entire time, changing the towels and wiping my sweat.
The only time she left was to briefly check on Alter’s condition.
On the morning of the third day, my fever had gone down considerably. A slight sore throat remained, but it was manageable enough for daily life.
I boiled water for tea and coffee and waited for Rireu. She had just left the room, saying she would check on her master’s condition before breakfast.
An hour or two passed.
Rireu didn't return. I gripped the doorknob, trying to suppress the anxious thought that some accident might have occurred.
At that moment, the door opened on its own, and a flushed Rireu entered.
“…You’re awake.”
The traces of tears were clear on her cheeks.
His progress was much faster than the two weeks or more that had been predicted.
I went with Rireu to his room to check on Alter's condition. A white-haired old man lay there, surrounded by clerics and doctors.
When Alter saw Rireu and me enter through the open door, he gave us a bright smile.
Rireu scampered to her master’s side and began chattering like a sparrow about everything that had happened. Alter patted her head with a trembling hand.
It was a heartwarming scene, but it was deeply ominous when one of the doctors approached and whispered, asking if we could speak for a moment.
I held the still-open door and stepped out into the hallway.
“What is it?”
“…It’s about Sir Alter’s legs.”
The doctor first expressed his deepest regrets, then explained Alter’s current state.
When the Sword Saint found him, he had been caught in the great storm created by Maltiel. The bones in both his legs were shattered, and his entire body was covered in burns.
They had been worried due to his age, but his body’s recovery was surprisingly fast, and with the Saintess’s help, he was able to regain consciousness quickly. However, a severe aftereffect remained in his legs.
“An aftereffect? How severe?”
“Considering Sir Alter’s age… it will be difficult for him to even walk, let alone run.”
“…What?”
“Rehabilitation should only be for about 15 minutes a day. If he pushes himself out of impatience, his condition could actually worsen. He needs to rest in bed until the 30th of this month, and then…”
Ringing.
An annoying ringing sound digs into my ears.
***
Alter spent 23 out of 24 hours in bed.
He shouldn't have. To spend a whole hour somewhere other than his bed.
The doctor had said he needed to stay in bed until the 30th of the month to let his legs rest completely.
But he forced himself to sit at the dining table for meals, and he tried to sit at his desk and read for at least ten minutes a day.
When Rireu or I told him he could just read in bed, he’d spout some nonsense like ‘for a scholar, the desk is the second battlefield,’ stubbornly insisting.
It wasn't that Alter didn't know the state of his legs.
The doctors and clerics repeatedly tried to persuade him to rest in bed, but the man named Alter Haindel never listened to their warnings.
On the evening of the fourth day, Alter began forcing himself to walk out of bed, and by the morning of the fifth day, he was holding onto the hallway wall, starting his own rehabilitation.
He couldn't walk even a meter before collapsing, but each time, he would prop himself up with his cane, groaning as he rose.
Without anyone’s help.
Seeing this pathetic sight, I teased him, calling it a ‘gait befitting his age.’
Rireu reacted coldly to a joke that crossed the line, but Alter laughed heartily, his voice echoing down the hall.
“You always act so sly, but it seems you’re not used to saying cold things when it really matters.”
Alter leaned against the wall and turned his head toward me.
His face was drenched in a cold sweat, but his eyes were still sharp, and his hands were full of strength.
“…Have you gone senile? You’re spouting nonsense.”
“In times like these, you can just be direct.”
A faint pity was reflected in his eyes.
Pity? Who was the one with shattered legs, to be looking at me with pity?
“…”
I was so dumbfounded I couldn't say anything.
Alter didn't rush me, simply standing there and waiting for me to prepare myself.
Perhaps ten minutes passed like that?
Or maybe not even thirty seconds had gone by.
In such a heavy, stiff silence, one second can feel like ten.
“…It’s time for you to retire.”
I shattered the heavy, stiff silence and brought out the words I had prepared.
“No.”
Alter answered immediately, without a hint of hesitation.
…To answer so resolutely made me, who had deliberated for so long, feel foolish.
Damn old man, it would be nice if he considered the other person’s feelings for once.
“You can never return to the field with those legs.”
“Of course not, in my current state. But my rehabilitation won’t even take a month.”
“No matter how well your rehabilitation goes, you won’t escape the fate of needing a cane.”
“The doctors and clerics said so as well. But aren’t there always exceptions in this world?”
“…”
Rireu said nothing, simply tugging at the hem of Alter's clothes—the master who was like a father to her.
It seemed she, too, found the struggling Alter pitiful.
“Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t like you, Alter.”
“Ho ho, this old man’s stubbornness is quite something, I’m afraid! I can’t grant that request.”
Alter’s eyes still sparkled brightly.
So much so that when you met his gaze, you could almost believe that the day his legs would be fully healed might actually come.
Couldn’t Alter Haindel show us another miracle?
…No.
I can’t entrust the future to such a vague hope.
“Retire. Leave the fieldwork to the young ones now. It would be better for you to focus on educating Rireu and me.”
This is reality.
Someone has to stop this spirited old man.
Otherwise, he will overwork his legs, which don't have much time left, under the pretext of rehabilitation.
If that happens, he’ll reach a point where he can’t even walk with a cane, and he’ll end up spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
To believe he can perform a miracle and leave him be is, in the end, to kill him.
“The probability of your legs returning to normal converges to zero. There’s your age, and the injuries were by no means light. It’s a miracle it ended here.”
“How can I rest easy while sending these clumsy disciples of mine to the battlefield alone? Both Rireu and you, Bin, seem less disciplined than a naked monkey in my eyes.”
“…You’ve earned your rest, Alter.”
“For a man like me, rest is like poison. In an age where battles are still being fought somewhere on the continent, a life of greeting the sparrows in the trees while basking in the sun does not suit the man standing before you.”
“…”
Ah, damn it, those eyes again.
“How can an old man who has achieved everything have eyes like that?”
“Achieved everything? I don’t know what you’re talking about. The wall of the 9th Circle is still before me. And once I reach the 9th Circle, I will challenge the wall of the 10th. I still have a long way to climb.”
That old man had the eyes of a boy.
Those eyes were gazing at a dream yet unfulfilled, glinting with the resolve to endure any risk.
“What’s more frightening than not being able to walk is not even trying to take a step towards a miracle.”
This old man before me was a boy, an explorer, and a relentless scholar who didn't know when to stop.
And also, a mage.
“…I’ll be waiting. Heal your legs quickly.”
In the end, that was all I could say to the man named Alter Haindel.