Chapter 8
Chapter 8
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: #2 Responsibility and Duty (3)
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The western battlefield was vicious.
It was the continent's crucible where one empire and seven kingdoms vied for supremacy, a demonic realm on earth that used humans as kindling.
Ignited by the blood of countless souls, it devoured the blood of even more, making its viciousness all the more horrifying. And the stories of those turned to kindling were legion.
Some had lived such tumultuous lives that they ended up on the battlefield.
That was the case with a certain noble heir Elric had met.
“I’m Elbus Graham. You’re Kasha, right?”
It was around the time he’d just turned seventeen.
Back then, Elric was a promising mercenary adapting to the battlefield, while he was the third son of a family leading a territorial war.
The two were in an employer-employee relationship, and that day’s battlefield was a wall defended by a hundred matchlockmen.
Elric and the heir were on the sieging side, aiming to breach the wall.
“We need to break through that gate. My Graham Family knights will charge in on horseback. Then the soldiers will follow with the siege. The defenders’ forces will swarm toward us. That’s when you slip inside.”
The heir had been only twenty at the time.
It was now a distant memory, so Elric couldn’t recall his exact appearance, but those gun-like eyes still burned bright in his mind.
Elric had wondered why a young noble barely out of his teens was commanding the battlefield, but he hadn’t asked.
A mercenary’s duty was to do the job he was paid for.
“Chargeeee!”
Certain things always lingered on the battlefield.
The chilling, fishy stench of iron and blood mingled in the air, yellow dust clouds billowing from the flying dirt, and the cheers and explosions scattering them.
Elbus Graham was right in the thick of it.
Not as a commander, but as a knight, he’d joined the fray to pierce the enemy wall.
Even through the dust, his desperate struggles were plain to see.
Elric had watched from a step removed from the chaos.
“Kasha, time for us to get started.”
“Got it.”
In the end, the battle was a victory.
Because Elric had beheaded the enemy commander and captured the castellan’s bloodline.
But it couldn’t be called a complete victory.
The heir, Elbus Graham, was left crippled, never to set foot on a battlefield again.
These things happened.
Were cripples from the battlefield a rarity? He’d kept his life, which was fortunate enough. And as a noble, his life wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.
With those thoughts, Elric visited the Graham Family estate to collect his agreed payment.
That was when he glimpsed Elbus Graham’s tumultuous life.
He learned it from the estate servants.
Servants loved salacious gossip to chase away boredom.
“What’s to become of the third young master now? So pitiful.”
“Sigh, what sin did he commit, born to a concubine, to be driven all the way to the battlefield...”
“Did you see? Even though he’ll never walk again, he came in smiling. Went straight to the duke to report.”
“But the duke won’t even blink...”
Everyone has their sore spots.
Even that bright young heir had his reverse scale.
Elric pieced together the picture.
Likely, as a concubine’s son enduring persecution, he’d plunged into the heart of the battlefield to escape his plight.
Unable to inherit the family, he’d dreamed of making a name as a general.
Or perhaps he yearned for his father the duke’s approval.
He couldn’t shake those thoughts about the man’s inner world because of a sense of shared misery.
At seventeen, Elric utterly hated his own father and could rant all day about the unhappiness of a child starved for parental attention.
Elric, who’d never been good at holding back his nature, asked Elbus Graham outright the moment they met.
“You look a mess. Must’ve suffered because of your worthless father.”
“Oh, you’re here?”
“Don’t you resent your father?”
“Hm?”
He’d wanted to curse him out together, vent their spleens.
But the response was unexpected.
“Hm, I didn’t go to war to catch the Family Head’s eye.”
Sometimes, you meet someone from a world utterly apart.
So different that their very existence felt alien—that day was like that.
Elbus Graham, half-reclining in bed looking haggard, still shone with that gun-like spark.
With eyes harboring not a shred of doubt, he firmly denied Elric’s words.
“It was simply fulfilling my duty. Nothing more.”
He said it was the duty and obligation befitting one born a noble.
That those in admired positions must set an example worthy of it.
That this war was merely a place to fulfill that duty and obligation.
Elric, unable to comprehend, tossed out a question without thinking.
Looking back, it was so rude he could’ve lost his head for it.
“...Aren’t you a concubine’s son? Half commoner.”
Even to that, Elbus Graham smiled in reply.
“Put another way, half noble. And by fulfilling half my duty and obligation, I lost half my body. Hm, not bad. I can spend the rest of my days leisurely like a wastrel.”
And indeed, that’s how he lived afterward.
Stepping back from the war’s boiling crucible, he enjoyed what came with being a noble heir, even marrying a few years later.
Elric knew because they met several times after.
The peculiar concubine’s son Elbus Graham was one of the few friends Elric made living as Kasha, and a man who’d inspired him in his youth.
...Anyway, there was a reason Elric recalled that past now.
“I am Tiria Portman.”
It was Tiria’s answer to why she hadn’t returned to her family but stayed to protect the inheritance.
Her expression was serene, utterly unshaken, as if stating plain fact.
Quintessentially noble.
That’s why it came to mind unbidden.
Responsibility and duty.
The weight they bore as a matter of course.
Scraaape, scraaape—
Elric sat at the room’s desk.
In his hand was the dagger he always carried, drawn and scraping the desk.
Its blade was dull. He wasn’t sharpening it.
The dagger was just a talisman Elric carried to quell his inner unease.
Scraaape, scraaape—
Even with that, he’d gouged dozens of long scars into the desk.
As deep as the time he’d spent agonizing.
Staring at them, Elric repeated the same word.
‘Responsibility and duty.’
That must be the heart of her answer: ‘I am Tiria Portman.’
Not knowing her well, Elric could only link it to her noble demeanor and reply.
Then what responsibility and duty did she bear?
Questions followed, seeking answers.
‘As a noble’s wife.’
What were they, again...?
From what Elric knew, while the family head tended to external affairs, the lady managed the inner household.
She was the pillar upholding the family, the guardian of order.
Then Tiria’s answer must be the same.
‘Portman.’
As Tiria Portman, she’d stayed to protect what remained of the Portmans.
Not for personal satisfaction, but to fulfill her responsibility and duty.
Her words, delivered as if the most obvious thing, spoke to the morality she’d upheld.
Shame began to gnaw at him anew.
Responsibility and duty were what Elric had turned his back on and fled.
Of the two, she alone had upheld the morality and honor as a human—and as a noble.
He gripped the dagger tight.
Gazing at its dead blade, Elric continued his musings.
He couldn’t repay the ten years she’d sacrificed.
Elric had no power to turn back time.
But that didn’t mean there was absolutely nothing he could do.
‘Another letter will come.’
A letter demanding the inheritance.
It had come steadily for a year; no reason it would stop now.
One thing to consider: the Weibin Family demanded replies but hadn’t come here themselves.
They probably thought they couldn’t.
It could be his father’s will, or Tiria’s.
‘She won’t answer if I ask...’
If she were that sort, she’d have mentioned the letters already.
From observing her, she wasn’t one to show her feelings, so she wouldn’t complain.
But fortunately, it wasn’t impossible to find out.
Elric rose from his seat.
Leaning on his cane, he left the room.
“Aldio.”
“Yes.”
“Prepare a carriage?”
“Hm? Where to, sir?”
Elric grinned.
“To the Weibin Family.”
A small help, but if those letters truly troubled Tiria, he could resolve it. Just tell the Weibins to stop sending them.
Even if the opposite, Elric could handle it. If it was his father’s will blocking family communication, he could bridge it again.
Direct confrontation.
It was Elric’s favorite word.