A Crown of Wildflowers
Logan was ten years old when he first began to grasp, however dimly, what he truly was.
A past life.
He realized that he had once been an ordinary young man on a blue planet called Earth—and that he had been reborn into a medieval fantasy world where swords and magic were real.
It was the very world he had encountered countless times in games, novels, and comics—worlds spun entirely from fiction.
Buildings roughly hewn from stone and timber instead of steel and concrete, a smithy belching acrid smoke, unpaved dirt roads rattling beneath passing carriages. Everything was unfamiliar, and yet strangely, achingly familiar all at once.
And he understood, instinctively, that he was not the protagonist of this story. No blessed bloodline, no hidden talent, not even so much as extraordinary luck had been granted to him.
Simply the only son of a commoner couple.
That was all this life had given Logan.
But even if he had wanted to dredge up his past-life memories and scheme something grand, the man he'd been on Earth had never been anyone special either. He'd possessed no professional expertise, no particular skills worth mentioning.
He couldn't be certain, but nothing worthwhile was coming to mind, so probably not.
In other words, despite being reborn into another world, there wasn't much of anything he could actually do.
And yet—
'...Well, it doesn't really matter.'
He had no complaints.
No—he had no reason to complain. Being born as anything other than a slave at the very bottom of society, or some wretched peasant, was gratitude enough in itself.
And above all, there was already someone in his world so dazzlingly precious that no blessing or extraordinary power could ever compare.
He was lost in such thoughts when—
"Logan~!"
A clear, bright voice called his name.
A voice as warm as sunlight settling down over the earth.
Logan turned his head reflexively toward the sound.
Behind the village, atop a gentle hill, a girl was waving and beaming in the soft wind, her pretty brown hair streaming around her face.
Her large, utterly clear black eyes brimmed with mischief and tenderness.
His childhood friend, Irene.
The same age as him—ten years old—and still childish in appearance, yet beautiful the way a finished painting is beautiful. Anyone who saw her would know at a glance that this girl would one day grow into a stunning woman.
Right now, Logan was spending a quiet afternoon in the warm sunlight with exactly that girl.
Irene. She was the one who had given Logan, thrown into a world he didn't understand, a reason to keep living.
It wasn't just because she was pretty and cute.
Her kind, warm nature gently filled the hollow somewhere in his heart—a hollow left behind by memories of a past life.
"What are you working so hard on this time?"
Logan approached her with a soft smile. In her small hands, blue wild grasses and tiny flowers were being woven together into a single shape.
Irene grinned impishly, then carefully placed the finished flower crown on Logan's head. The fresh scent of grass tickled his nose.
"A crown for Prince Logan!"
"Why am I a prince?"
Logan asked with an awkward laugh, and Irene put a finger to her chin as though giving it serious thought before her eyes lit up and she cried out.
"Hmm... then, my knight?"
"Pfft—!"
Logan burst out laughing in spite of himself.
"Wh-why are you laughing—!"
Irene pouted and grumbled.
Even that was so endearing that a corner of Logan's chest tingled.
Just looking at her like this, it felt as though every worry in the world could simply be forgotten. Warmth rose up from somewhere deep inside him, and he found himself steeped in a happiness beyond compare.
Yes. This was enough.
It was fine that he would never be a hero who saved the world like the protagonist of some novel or game, never a great swordsman or mage.
He didn't need any special power.
As long as he could stay by Irene's side like this—laughing with her, talking with her, living ordinary days together—
his life was already perfect.
Considering his past life, his mental age had long since reached adulthood, but the ten-year-old boy named Logan made a firm vow in his heart.
In this life, he would live for Irene—and for her alone.
Even if she never knew how he felt.
Even if no reward for his devotion ever came back to him.
He would love her without reserve and give everything he had for her happiness.
And so Logan's small, humble world—
revolved perfectly, and peacefully, around a dazzling sun called Irene.
Time flowed swiftly onward, and still—
Logan was always at Irene's side.
They ran laughing through the village together; sometimes a small misunderstanding would leave one of them sulking, but they would lean on each other and make up before long.
Life in the frontier village was monotonous to the extreme.
Yet for the two children, every single day brimmed with new discoveries and small joys—days more full, more happy, than any others could be.
Logan prayed earnestly that this peace, this precious happiness, would last forever.
But then, one afternoon—
that wish shattered into pieces.
He had been spending the day on the hill with Irene as always, and was on his way home at dusk when—
suddenly.
KRA-KOOOOM—!
A roar split the air, tearing at his eardrums, erupting from the heart of the village.
Then came the screams—horrible, heart-freezing screams, rising one after another in a chain.
"Kyaaaaagh!!"
"R-run! It's monsters!"
"A monster horde! Monsters!!"
A monster attack.
In an instant, the peaceful village became a scene of utter chaos. Terrified villagers scattered in every direction, screaming, while the crash of collapsing buildings mingled with unidentifiable shrieks, compounding the pandemonium.
"Th-this... what... is..."
A monster attack.
The scenes he had only ever read about in games and novels were unfolding before his eyes, vivid and real.
Only now did Logan understand.
The world he lived in was no romantic fantasy. It was a cruel, merciless reality where death and violence lurked around every corner.
"Ah... ah...!"
Goblins, orcs, kobolds.
Seeing real monsters for the first time, Logan was crushed beneath overwhelming terror. In games and comics they had been nothing but fodder—disposable minor enemies. Reality was nothing like it.
'Move...! Move, damn it...!'
His mind screamed at him to run, but his feet might as well have been rooted into the ground.
Thud-thud!
His heart pounded like a lunatic; he had all but forgotten how to breathe.
Then—
"Krr...?"
A goblin spotted him.
"Kikik! Krrr—!"
A greedy, vicious smile spread across its hideous face.
"GRAAAH—!!"
Raising a rusty dagger, the goblin charged without a shred of hesitation at the young prey before it.
The shadow of death swallowed Logan in an instant.
But he couldn't even scream. He could only stare blankly at the blade closing in.
'So this is... how I die...?'
In the heartbeat where futility and terror blurred together—
CLANG—!
With a sharp shriek of metal, a sword blow flashed in like lightning and knocked the goblin's dagger spinning into the air.
At the same moment, a figure appeared, blocking itself squarely between Logan and death.
A woman adventurer, red hair tied back tight, standing with the setting sun at her back.
Shff—!
She swung her sword without a flicker of hesitation, and the next instant the goblin's head went sailing skyward.
Spla-a-ash—!
Filthy green blood fountained across the ground as the body crumpled and rolled limply to a stop.
"Hey, kid! Snap out of it!"
The adventurer shouted over her shoulder at Logan, eyes fierce, and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him hard.
"Haah...! Haah...!"
Only then did Logan come back to himself, gulping down the breath he'd been holding.
"Th-thank you..."
"It's dangerous here! Get home, now! The monsters haven't made it deep into the residential quarter yet—hurry!"
With that, the adventurer gripped her sword anew and charged without pause toward the streets where other monsters were still rampaging.
Logan did as she said and bolted for home like a madman.
Terrible images clawed through his mind—what if something had happened to his parents, what if the monsters had gotten to them—
Fortunately, when he reached the house, the door was shut fast, and from within came the sound of his parents' voices.
"Logan! You're safe, my son!"
"Oh, thank heavens! Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Mother! Father!"
Logan threw himself into their arms.
Their warmth, their familiar voices, washed over him and soothed the panic away. Relief at simply being alive brought tears prickling to his eyes.
But that relief did not last.
'...Irene!'
The face of the person most precious to him flashed through his mind—and an icy dread seized his heart.
Irene lived with her family not in the village's residential quarter, but in a small cabin near the forest on the outskirts.
If monsters had attacked the village, that would have been the very first place exposed to danger.
"N-no...!"
In that instant, relief turned to a bone-deep fear. His heart went cold, as though plunged into ice water.
"Logan! Where do you think you're going!"
"It's dangerous out there right now! Please, stay inside!"
Shaking off his parents' desperate pleas, Logan kicked open the door and ran out once more.
The terror of moments ago was already forgotten. There was only one thought left in his head: find Irene.
He ran until his breath scraped the back of his throat, and when he reached the village square again, the chaos seemed to have been largely contained. The adventurers and the village guard must have dealt with most of the monsters together, because no rampaging creatures remained in sight.
Across the ground lay monster corpses and shattered wreckage in strewn disarray.
"Haah...! Haah...!"
As he gulped down air and looked around, a familiar shock of red hair caught Logan's eye.
It was the adventurer who had saved him earlier. She was helping the others clean up the aftermath.
There was no time to hesitate.
"Excuse me! Please, help me!"
Logan ran straight up to her and shouted.
"Huh? The kid from before? What's wrong? The monsters are nearly all cleaned up, so you can relax..."
The adventurer recognized him and looked briefly startled, then tried to reassure him—but Logan cut her off, clinging to her in desperation.
"Please! My—my friend's in danger! She lives on the edge of the village... Come with me, please! Okay?"
At the raw urgency in the boy's face, the adventurer faltered for a moment—then seemed to make up her mind and nodded.
"...All right. Lead the way."
"Thank you! This way!"
Logan hurried off with the adventurer toward the cabin on the village outskirts where Irene lived.
The fact that a skilled adventurer was helping him was some small comfort—but the closer they drew to the cabin, the darker his foreboding grew.
The surroundings were unnaturally, impossibly quiet. Not the slightest trace of any living creature could be felt.
And when Logan finally arrived, what greeted him was—
a cabin destroyed almost beyond recognition.
The door had been smashed clean off, and a massive hole gaped in the roof.
And there, in the middle of the yard—
something lay fallen.
It was—
a person.
A grown man's corpse, sprawled in blood, his limbs mangled beyond describing.
"Sir...?"
Logan knew at once that it was Irene's father.
"Ah... ah... AAAAGH—!"
A scream tore out of him before he could stop it.
He could not—would not—believe what was before his eyes.
"K-kid! Don't look!"
The adventurer rushed to cover his eyes, but he shoved her hand away and staggered inside the cabin.
And the moment they stepped in, another horror was waiting for them.
"Ah... ah..."
"God... filthy monster bastards..."
At the sight of a woman's body on the floor, Logan went numb with shock, and the adventurer couldn't keep the revulsion from twisting her face.
She hadn't merely been killed. Her clothes had been torn away, and the marks of violation were plain across her body.
The victim was almost certainly—
Irene's mother.
"Kid... I'm so sorry, but... we should go. Your friend, she's probably..."
Grief written across her face, the adventurer took Logan by the shoulder and tried to pull him away.
She didn't want him finding his friend's body too, not in the middle of this atrocity.
It was far too cruel a reality for a young boy to bear.
Smack!
"Kid!"
But Logan knocked her hand away, rough and hard.
His reason seemed to have shut down entirely. Like a madman, he began tearing through the house.
"Irene! Irene! Where are you! Answer me! Irene!!!"
Until his throat ripped raw, until he could taste blood in his mouth, he didn't stop—
"Irene! Please! I'm begging you!! Irene!!!"
Screaming his childhood friend's name, he ransacked every corner of the house.
"No... no, no...!"
He shoved past broken furniture, dug through shreds of torn cloth.
"Please... please...!"
Praying, begging with everything in him—just let her be alive.
Then—
"Hh... hic... hck..."
From the corner of the room, from inside an old wardrobe, a faint sound of crying leaked out.
"...Irene?"
Logan's trembling hands carefully pulled open the wardrobe door.
And inside—
a small girl was curled up.
Her face was a ruin of tears and snot, a complete mess—
but there was no mistaking it. It was Irene.
"Hic... hck...! L-Logan...?"
Terrified and trembling like a leaf, she looked up at the boy who had opened the door—and then burst into even harder sobs.
"HUWAAAAH—!"
Logan sank to the floor and pulled the shuddering Irene into his arms with all his strength.
"Irene...!"
"Logan...! Logan...!"
Ah—
She was alive.
Ah—
He hadn't lost her.
Logan needed nothing else in the world.
Simply—
the fact that Irene was breathing, living, here in his arms right now.
That alone was enough.