The Former Subordinate's Inn
I needed to start thinking of ways to get revenge on those higher-ups back in the capital.
She was launching into a passionate speech even though I hadn't said a word.
I hadn't doubted her at all. I was just curious about the situation that had brought her here.
If I remembered right... it had been somewhere out in the provinces of the kingdom.
I'd heard she had become the adjutant to the commander of the unit stationed there.
The third-highest position of real power in a large unit.
That was what a commander's adjutant was, after all.
Naturally, an adjutant wasn't a rank a regular soldier could hold, so she must have been promoted to officer.
Most of my unit members had received two-rank promotions, so she would have been around sergeant.
Sergeant would have been the highest rank among those of her year group.
The pay would have been solid, of course.
And yet she had thrown that position away to work at an inn in some backwater village on the West Continent?
"I-it's the truth! I properly mustered out and returned home!"
"Hmm... is that so?"
I wasn't really suspicious, but I fixed her with a sharp, probing stare anyway. Delua waved her hands frantically in protest once more.
In truth, I knew perfectly well she wasn't the type to lie to me.
She had always been surprisingly afraid of me, so she never would have had the guts.
I had worked her hard enough, after all.
When it came to knights and soldiers about to head to the battlefield, working them hard was the only answer.
"Th-that's right, ma'am! Have you ever seen me lie to you, Captain? I'm not that kind of woman!"
"I know. And honestly, whether you mustered out properly or deserted, it doesn't matter to me either way."
Even if she had deserted, what exactly was I supposed to do about it?
Drag a comrade who had shared life and death with me on the battlefield all the way back to the royal capital?
I no longer had any reason or obligation to do something like that.
If anything, I wanted to encourage every former member of my unit to retire—or desert—as soon as possible.
"W-what do you mean by that...?"
"I mustered out too."
"What?!"
She looked thoroughly shocked.
Well, that made sense. For all my current appearance, I had once been the kingdom's hero—an elite among elites whose dream had been to become the overall commander of the knight orders.
Delua had watched that version of me from right beside me.
Right up until the day she was promoted and left.
Three years... no, four?
It had only been about a year since we parted ways.
"Let's go sit over there and talk over a cup of tea. My companions are waiting."
"O-of course, ma'am. Please go ahead and wait. I'll bring the tea shortly."
"Got it. And you can drop that weird formal military speech already. You're older than me, aren't you?"
"Ah... even so... y-you're the Captain..."
I was pretty sure she was five years older than me.
But she had spoken to me with such stiff formality for so long that breaking the habit was clearly difficult.
Forcing the issue wouldn't be kind either.
She could speak however she liked.
"Th-then I'll go get it! Please wait for me!"
Delua fled into the kitchen as if escaping.
Was she embarrassed, or was she still hiding something?
Nothing I could do about it... I would just have to go wait.
Enge and Erna would be waiting for me.
Come to think of it, the atmosphere here wasn't as bad as I'd first thought.
It had looked a little shabby at first glance, so I hadn't been impressed.
I told Enge about what had happened at the lord's manor.
I heaped praise on Erna, saying her cleverness had kept us from getting stabbed in the back.
Even the usually stoic Erna got embarrassed after all, didn't she?
Watching her bury her face against her mother with flushed cheeks made me feel warm and fuzzy myself.
"I see. I'm glad my daughter was able to be of help to you, Lady Esilly."
"I'm the one who should be thanking her for coming along."
Was Enge happy to hear her daughter praised?
The way she was stroking Erna's hair seemed even faster than before.
Whoa.
It got faster again.
"By the way... do you happen to know the owner of this place?"
"The owner?"
Had I spoken with the owner?
I had been waiting to rent a room and ended up talking with Delua, but...
I tilted my head in confusion, and Enge gave a wry smile.
"The person you were speaking with at the front desk earlier is the owner of this inn."
"Delua isn't an employee—she's the owner...?"
Wait, not an employee but the owner?
That was an ending I never would have imagined.
"Did you call for me, Captain?"
Speak of the devil—true to the saying, Delua appeared right then carrying a tray.
There were four cups on it.
Coffee... black tea... black tea... orange juice.
She set each cup down carefully and took the empty seat.
"I remembered that you liked coffee, Captain, so I brought you that."
"Thanks. You somehow matched everyone's tastes perfectly."
"Once you work at an inn long enough, you just get a feel for these things."
What did running an inn have to do with guessing drink preferences?
Anyway, I took a long, refreshing gulp of the iced Americano sitting in front of me.
"That's cold!"
Ahh... even in another world, coffee had to be Americano!
And insisting on iced was only proper for a son of Korea!
But Delua shook her head as if she couldn't possibly agree with that statement.
She looked at me with pure incomprehension.
"What? What's wrong with iced Americano?"
"You might just be the person who drinks coffee in the strangest way in this entire world, Captain. Putting coffee in plain water and drinking it cold..."
"What's so strange about it? You can brew that black tea a little stronger, add ice, and it becomes a drink called iced tea. Want to try it?"
"Ugh... that would be desecrating the tea. You do that sort of thing with orange juice or grape juice, not coffee or tea."
Not only Delua but Enge, sitting beside her, nodded in agreement.
Come on... tastes just differ from person to person.
It wasn't as if we were Italian or anything.
"More importantly, tell me why you're working at an inn here in the first place. And you're not even an employee—you're the owner? Delua, the boss?"
"Ehehe. It just sort of happened that way."
"How did you end up leaving the knight order? What on earth made you throw away that iron rice bowl?"
That was right.
She was one of the few members of our squad who had received the unprecedented reward of a two-rank special promotion.
Even if it was only the adjutant to the commander of a small unit out in the sticks...
If she worked hard, becoming the commander of that unit herself wasn't an impossible dream.
She seemed to be wrestling with whether she should tell me or not.
But when I gently urged her to speak, she finally made up her mind. She fidgeted for a moment, then slowly opened her mouth.
"W-well, the truth is... the truth is, ma'am..."
Delua began recounting, carefully and clearly, everything that had happened after we parted ways.
Just as I had known, she had received a two-rank promotion and been reassigned to a frontier knight order, so she had headed there.
She had felt a little lonely and empty about leaving the comrades she had shared so much with, but since everyone was being promoted and parting on good terms, she had decided to look on the bright side.
She steeled herself and went to her new post.
But the moment she arrived, she heard something that struck like a bolt from the blue—something she never could have imagined.
"Th-they recommended you for early retirement?! At your new post?!"
"Not just me... the entire unit received that 'disposition'..."
In that instant, I felt as if the thread of reason holding my mind together had snapped.
I wanted to explode right then and there, but there was nothing I could do now that I had already left the Central Continent.
I had worked myself to the bone on the battlefield.
On the front lines where death could come at any moment.
Do you know why I endured being abandoned without turning the entire kingdom upside down?
Because even though they had abandoned me, they had promoted and treated my unit members well. That was why I had gritted my teeth and held back.
I had thought it was understandable.
My power was so vast and terrifying that they might have been afraid, so sending me to a dead-end post that was only a promotion in name seemed like something I could accept.
But those higher-ups in the kingdom had crossed the line.
No matter how you looked at it, this was them tearing apart the unit members I had loved and forcing them into early retirement under the pretty name of "honorable discharge."
"Honestly... I really hated it. I couldn't even understand why I had to retire like that..."
"I get it... so then?"
"But once you're already out of favor, what can you do? On the very day I arrived, I filled out the early retirement application, collected every last bit of the severance pay, and came straight back to my hometown."
Since she had mustered out as a sergeant, the severance pay had been about three times what a regular soldier would receive.
On top of that, they had offered an additional fifty gold coins, bringing the total to one hundred twenty.
"We risked our lives to save the country... and the reward was a measly one hundred twenty gold coins..."
"Still, I'm glad I got at least that much. Without it, buying this inn might have been a bit tight."
"You bought it with the severance pay?"
"Where else would I get the money? I poured every last coin into it."
Even so, she had used what was left to renovate the interior and replace the furniture, and she launched into a proud little speech about it all.
She had looked a bit bitter earlier, but right now, while she was bragging, she seemed genuinely happy.
Idiot... fool...
I let out a sigh as I watched Delua cheerfully showing off, then moved one hundred gold coins from a box in my Inventory into a pouch.
I pulled the now-bulging pouch out of my Inventory and set it on the table in front of her without a word.
"W-what is this?"
Delua looked slightly flustered at the sudden appearance of the pouch.
She hadn't changed one bit from the Delua who used to react to the unit members teasing her in the middle of the war.
"Take it. Don't say a word."
"What?!"
"I'm going to go rest first, so I'll see you later. Enge, Erna—see you tomorrow."
"Please rest well."
"See you tomorrow, big sister."
I waved to Enge and Erna, then used the same hand to roughly ruffle Delua's hair until it was a complete mess.
What a complete fool.